We may be standing on the unanticipated and unwanted resumption of the Ricky Ledee era. At least I assume that's who'll get the call from New Orleans, though the way things are going with anyone unwise enough to set foot in our outfield, perhaps it'll be Ron Swoboda. Or me. They're saying that what struck down Endy Chavez was a hamstring strain, but that sure didn't look like any hamstring strain I've ever seen. That looked like a six- to eight-week gunshot.
I don't think I agree with Gary Cohen that this had the feeling of a pivotal point in the season. Yes, the Phillies have shown a much better bullpen, and Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino played their guts out tonight. (Memo to all baserunners: Do not fuck with Shane Victorino.) But the Phillies still made plenty of mistakes, enough to doom them on a night the Met offense was firing on its normal number of cylinders. And, well, they're the Phillies. Jimmy Rollins' talent and fire have never been in question — even when the Phils were getting shoved around Shea in April, he acquitted himself perfectly well. But I doubt it'll be enough. I doubt they'll be able to get out of their own way when it matters — not with that bullpen, that manager and that peculiar lethargy that seems to creep into their clubhouse no matter how hard the likes of Aaron Rowand and Rollins and Victorino play.
Meanwhile, we're a very good baseball team scuffling through injuries and a cold offensive stretch, and what we're doing or not doing in early June most likely will have nothing to do with whatever happens in September or later months, should we be allowed to partake of extra baseball. I don't think tonight's game — a heartstopping, marvelous and ultimately horrifying game [1] — was any kind of referendum on 2007. But it did bring something into focus for me, and that's the difference between 2007 and 2006.
In 2006, Heilman giving up a three-run laser to Rollins would have just upped the drama. In 2006, with the equivalents of Ruben Gotay and David Newhan (Xavier Nady and Michael Tucker?) on base and Endy up, you knew there'd be a clean single up the middle, a play at the plate that just went the Mets' way, then maybe a shredding of the hapless Phillies bullpen on the way to talk about resilience and picking each other up. You just knew it, to the point that sometimes you even shook your head at the blissful cheesiness of the script, of walkoff after walkoff and comeback win after comeback win, so that if the scoreboard showed you were within two in late innings, you almost felt sorry for the other guys.
That happened so often early in 2006 that you fell head over heels in love with the Mets — if you had any liking for baseball or human achievement or drama, how couldn't you? And the Mets fell head over heels in love with themselves, and before any of us could catch our breath the momentum was unstoppable and we were pennant-bound. The 2007 model Mets have a decent-sized lead of their own and statistical superiority over all comers, and they're perfectly capable of running off 5-of-7 streak that will make us all relax — heck, they did just lose a third-straight game for the first time all year. But the feeling isn't the same, because the ridiculous, giddy drama isn't there. This year, that bouncer up the middle might be hit hard enough to be a double play. Last year, you knew Endy would just beat it out anyway. This year, he needs to be helped off the field.
We won't remember it for long, but until then this was a pretty neat game, what with El Duque doing his usual chemistry experiment on the mound (Ugh! Smoke! Things breaking! Hang on … fiddle fiddle … Got it!) and Carlos Beltran pulling a reverse Dave Augustine. And I thoroughly enjoyed pulling an A-Rod on the Useless Liability Formerly Known as Pat Burrell, razzing him foully and smugly during his at-bat as the one guy I'd want to see up in that spot. Unfortunately he was only the second out, and he was followed by Rollins. Then came the change-up from Heilman that was supposed to go outside and stayed in, and the rally that wasn't, and the images of Paul Lo Duca sitting morosely in the dirt behind home and Endy downed in the grass beyond first.
It's 2007, the scripts have been torn up, and we'll have to find our own way.