Familiar Figures

El Duque on his game.

Pedro in the dugout.

Five in the ninth.

They all looked wonderful Friday night. Orlando rehabilitates with so little notice that I tend to forget he's on call. You get a Duque outing like that (and with one exception, that's exactly what he's given us all year) and you've got a great chance, no matter how dimly and densely his teammates execute on his behalf. Thank goodness the Marlins did Sergio Mitre a similar lack of favor.

Mr. Martinez won't be going tonight or tomorrow or the next day (of course not the next day — why would every baseball team be scheduled to play baseball on a major national holiday in the middle of baseball season?), but just seeing that face…that face…that marvelous face…attached to that arm…that arm…that marvelous arm. He'll be back. He has to be. Pedro Martinez smiling in a Mets uniform from the bench is too big a tease to not augur Pedro Martinez pitching in a Mets uniform from a mound relatively soon.

In other injury news, Green and his .314 batting average sustained a broken bone in their right foot from a foul tip, an owwie sufficient enough to keep both of them out of action at least a couple of days. Those desperately craving another serving of Carlos Gomez energy drink might get a whole case if Shawn and the nearly recovered Moises pass in the DL night. Who knows?

That question would also apply to the final result, a W from a New York bunch that played like L'ers most of the evening. As implied above, the Mets stunk, almost every one of them not named Hernandez, Lo Duca or Smith. They didn't run correctly, they didn't throw correctly, they didn't play what you'd call sound baseball. But they nibbled determinedly at the heels of the Marlins bullpen until that esteemed body collapsed under the weight of its own inadequacy.

We'll take it. Better to be ugly winners than beautiful losers.