The Countdown - 3 to go

I'll make this short since this is my second post of the day, but reading about Carlos Voltron made me laugh so hard I figure I would try to do this on time while it's still fresh...

This was the bounce back game I wrote about in the previous post, the game where the night before fans were tearing their hair out and quoting Scripture about the Second Coming and...

OK, it wasn't that bad but there were many that lost faith after another late-inning loss.

Tonight, we needed a good start from Pedro and it's clear that he needs to either warm up extra in the bullpen or Jerry Manuel send out a reliever for the first and then let Pedro pitch. He's horrible to start the game and let some guy you've never heard of take him deep in the first and come back for more later...

But Pedro is a professional and stemmed the tide and kept the team in the game and the Mets tied it at 3-3 against Rich Harden headed into the seventh. Now, with his age and everything, any manager would have slapped Petey on the ass for a decent game (Quality Start no less) and called for the pen.

But Manuel looks out and is as scared and scarred as any Met faithful and instead of letting the pen blow it from jump, he asked Pedro to go back out. He promptly gave up a hit and a walk and when Ricardo Rincon (Yes, that same guy who's name you know because you know he's not any good) allows a three-run bomb and the Mets trail by a 6-3 margin.

But since this was a bounce back game, they bounced back with a small-ball run in the seventh and got big hits from Ramon Martinez (Not Pedro's brother) and Robinson Cancel and a great cat and mouse slide from Ryan Church to tie the game at 6-6.

Pedro Feliciano, a left-handed specialist, proved he's not that special and allowed a leadoff hit in the top of the ninth but Joe Smith closed the door and when Reyes led off the bottom of the ninth with a single, it was just a matter of time.

Yes, it would have been nice for Daniel Murphy to get down a bunt. Yes, it would have been nice for David Wright to come through but I'll take a two-out hit by Carlos Beltran for the win and make the Brewers have to beat up on the Cubs, who are on cruise control, while we deal with those pesky Fish.

Next up: Marlins at Mets
Chris Volstad, RHP (5-4, 3.10) vs. Mike Pelfrey, RHP (13-10, 3.70)

After a horrible start, Pelfrey has shown why Omar didn't want to include him in the Santana trade. The fact his ERA is below 4 is pretty amazing. Nevertheless, his last start was the first decent one against the Fish.

Volstad is a rookie, so of course he pitched 6-plus innings of good baseball against us in his only appearance against the Mets...

If any of you get to this, I wanted to mention this earlier but...
Kellerman was calling the Mets a jinxed franchise and it's hard to argue against that, especially lately. But the fact of the matter is the Mets are the by-product of the departure of the New York Giants (orange) and the Brooklyn Dodgers (blue).

The Giants (1885 - 1957) won 5 World Championships, 17 Pennants, and 16 Playoff Appearances before leaving the city that never sleeps, but there are big gaps of time when the team was horrible.

The Dodgers were known as the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1911, 1912, 1932 - 1957 and had only 1 World Championship and 7 Pennants but the Lovelbe Bums' were in Brooklyn from 1884 and before Leo Durocher took over in 1939, they had a 15-year run of being pretty average.

Point is the foundation of the Mets then and today as they build CitiField in tribute to both these teams is that of a second-rate team. It's something that the media latches onto and rides to advertising sales and website clicks, that fans easily adopt and one can only hope, is completely lost on those in uniform...