Somewhere Between Champs and Chumps

Five in the first. Five in the ninth. A whole lotta mess in between.

The Mets prevailed in a game that had neither manager inclined to take his charges to the Tastee-Freez afterwards. Lord, what a mess. That thing took 326 pitches, six walks, six hit batsmen, 18 strikeouts and a whole lot of forbearance in the face of lousy baseball. Yesterday we all vented a lot of our 2007 New York Mets frustrations, but let the record show that these enigmatic, infuriating Mets are not the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates are young, bad and dumb in various measures, and the only sure thing with too many of them is that they'll get older. I felt for Damaso Marte when he finally decided, “Hell with it, I'm drilling someone” — not because poor Shawn Green had it coming, but because the rules make it difficult for a reliever to throw a baseball into the back of his teammates, general manager or owner. Speaking of which, has anyone seen anything to justify our apparent interest in Ronnie Paulino? Based on the last two nights' admittedly small sample, he can neither hit, run, nor throw.

The good news, for me, was seeing that Willie's legendary patience with veterans has finally run out where Green is concerned — Milledge will get the bulk of the playing time from here on out, as he should have a couple of weeks ago at least. And clearly Jorge Sosa has bumped Guillermo Mota from the relievers' ladder, raising the possibility that a revitalized Joe Smith could return and keep the Run Fairy II the hell away from our postseason roster. (Alternately, Mota could get better. Because it ain't personal. Well, Mota's a headhunter and a cheater and a dimwit, so it's a little personal. But I've forgiven worse.)

Speaking of tired, what's to be done with John Maine and Oliver Perez? A couple of days over at Metsblog, Matt did an interesting interview with Ron Darling, and one of the things Darling discussed was how difficult a full season can be for a young pitcher. He talked of how winning nine games in the first half of his rookie season turned out to be a burden, how it's not just mechanics and physical fatigue but mental fatigue that can rob velocity from your pitches and take the edge off your game. Perez's fastball is off and his slider's inconsistent, and Maine looks frankly lost right now, easily undone by anything that goes wrong behind him. On the plus side, there's plenty of season to go and time to get them out of the rut. On the negative side, there are the Braves breathing fire behind us, and — as covered amply yesterday — the unsettling sight of our exasperating, inconsistent reflection in the mirror. Get well, young men — we need you.

The one moment of pure beauty tonight? It was Carlos Beltran striding into the gap after Jose Bautista's ninth-inning drive — I'd say streaking but Beltran runs so gracefully that he never seems to be going all that fast. At first it looked like Beltran couldn't possibly catch up to the ball. Then there was the slight possibility he could — followed by the frightening possibility that he, Moises Alou and the baseball might wind up in the same space at the same time. Then the deep exhale, and the promise not to run down Beltran the next time he looks indifferent at the plate, or is sitting in the dugout because something's not 100%.

I was startled by the reminder that Alou left the Pirates in the trade that brought them Zane Smith towards the end of the 1990 season. The same Zane Smith who looked like a Cabbage Patch doll, and who throttled us in the front end of a doubleheader on Sept. 5, 1990 — one of the more-disappointing days of my life as a Met fan. Keith Miller led off with a single, but that was it — Smith absolutely shut us down in one of the most-dominant pitching performances I've ever seen. (Franco lost, 1-0, in the ninth, with the coup de grace a single by Barry Bonds.) In the second game Bobby Ojeda got beat, 3-1; a day later Buddy Harrelson sent Julio Valera to the mound for a shellacking. Between that and a horrific gag job against Montreal not long after (I knew I was remembering Chris Nabholz from somewhere), we never recovered.

Now Alou is the gimpy, aging force that's meant twice meant the difference between wins and losses against the Pirates, and just might save this lineup from itself. It ain't exactly payback, not 17 years later. But it's some small something.