Well, who didn't see that coming?
It's one of those weeks. They occur from time to time in the life of a contender. Your starters carry you, you can't score at every dripping-wet opportunity and your bullpen conspires with a vengeful opposition to screw you over but good. It happened and happened and happened again this week.
It happens.
When did you know it was a done deal [1]? In the first when Wright pissed away second and third? The second when Lo Duca desperately turned a single into a non-double? When we had four hits after two innings off Cole Hamels but no runs? When Beltran cleared Ben Johnson off the basepaths with a double play to short-circuit the top of the sixth? When John Maine pitched his heart out yet trailed 2-0 in the middle of six?
All that was easy to see. It takes a seasoned eye to have figured out that what followed wasn't going to do us much good by evening's end.
• Delgado wallops Hamels 450 feet. Impressive, but it's only 2-1. Solo home runs, except when strategically delivered, are almost uniformly useless.
• Wright triples…no, homers…yeah, homers. Definitely homers. That's pretty good news, even though it's a solo homer. It should be a very positive sign that the Mets were credited with four bases instead of three since David went to the trouble of driving the ball over the fence. The umpires caucusing after Lo Duca noticed on DiamondVision that they blew it in the first place (are there enough badly spaced advertising signs out there?) was also an encouraging development and their decision to tell Charlie Manuel to stuff his illogical reasoning that getting it right was wrong because they're not supposed to take irrefutable video evidence into account — that was just plain fun.
• Lo Duca homering on the first pitch after all that? After Wright trotted home all golly-goshous? After Reyes greeted him with a time-lapse body slam of congratulations? After Valentin tested his knee or leg or whatever was wrong with him that caused him to be out more than a month (I've actually forgotten) by jumping up and down in the on-deck circle? Three consecutive batters sending the Mets from 0-2 to 1-2 to 2-2 to 3-2?
That should have been the turning point from all the alleged turning points of the last two nights. The Mets took a 3-2 lead in satisfying and dramatic fashion, Maine marched to the mound and threw a scoreless seventh, all was swell with the world.
Yeah. Right.
The Mets didn't lose the game in the bottom of the sixth. They lost it during the 19 other half-innings. They lost it in those early innings when they flat out refused to score. They lost it in the bottom of the seventh when Johnson and Beltran couldn't convert two baserunners into anything. They lost it in the top of the eighth when Pedro Feliciano began the parade of hapless hurlers who could not honor John Maine's effort just as they brought shame on the houses of Hernandez and Glavine. They lost it in the top of the ninth when Billy Wagner proved that the Sandman can Enter but he can't be expected to hang around for very long. They lost it in the bottom of the ninth when, as has become their late-inning custom, they stranded the potential winning run short of home plate.
The tenth was just the predictable pile of Schoeneweis that was bound to follow.
The Phillies were due this week. We embarrassed their ass in the Home Opener [2] and we wrecked their Wild Card chances all through August '06 (remember that foul ball that wasn't [3]?) and we steamrolled them [4] out of the division race last June and we even spoiled their playoff aspirations at the end of '05 [5]. They owed us one. Or three. How long are you going to keep Pat Burrell down at Shea Stadium anyway? We have cranes beyond the outfield wall. They brought a wrecking crew.
Not the end of the world, just the lousy homestand. Everybody's pressing, nobody's succeeding. It's annoying and distressing but it's still June and we're still in first place by 3-1/2 (or did you not notice the Braves have been losing all week, too?).
2007 may not bear ample resemblance to 2006, but look at the bright side: the Mets are going to Detroit at last [6].