Pole Position

Sunday seems to have exemplified just how well things have been going for the Mets of late. Terry Collins essentially threw his "D" lineup out there against the Minnesota Twins, and in spite of holding a slim late lead remained firm in his desire to not use any of his everyday players, and won the game anyway. It's either that or this is just the sort of luxury you can take in the middle of September when you have 39 players on your active roster and you're playing a team that's on the precipice of 100 losses for the season.

Not playing at all were Jose Reyes, James Loney, Curtis Granderson, Jay Bruce, Addison Reed or Jeurys Familia. Asdrubal Cabrera made only a cameo appearance. Yoenis Cespedes refused a day off and ended up leaving early anyway due to illness. Appearing instead was a veritable motley crew of players involving Gabriel Ynoa, Michael Conforto, Alejandro De Aza, Matt Reynolds, Kelly Johnson and, for the first time in months, Lucas Duda and Juan Lagares even saw some action in the 9th inning. This lineup wasn't exactly gangbusters, but the 3 runs they generated against Kyle Gibson was enough as they won, 3-2, to finish off the sweep of the Twins.

It appeared early as though this lineup was going to run Gibson off the mound before he'd even gotten started. A walk, a hit and a hit batter loaded the bases with no outs, and cleanup hitter Michael Conforto picked up a 2-run single, and then Gibson walked the next guy, and already there was action in the Twins bullpen. But Travis d'Arnaud, who's totally off kilter with no clear direction to get him out of this tailspin, hit the ball right on the screws--right at Brian Dozier who easily doubled Conforto off 2nd and kind of righted Gibson's ship. After that, the Mets did little off him except for a T.J. Rivera Home Run in the 3rd that ended up holding up as the winning run.

Ynoa, on the other hand, acquitted himself well enough over 4.2 innings. Aside from some 2nd inning difficulty, Ynoa was by and large fine on a day in which Collins basically said anything beyond 4 solid innings was gravy, and he did that, and he probably could have finished the 5th, too, and Collins probably outfoxed himself by pulling Ynoa after allowing that 2 out hit in the 5th and it nearly bit him in the ass. It ended up taking two pitchers to get that 3rd out. Fortunately, nothing of consequence happened during that span.

After that, it was basically a by-committee day for the Mets. Erik Goeddel got the last out of the 5th, worked a clean 6th and vultured a win for his troubles. Josh Smoker handled the 7th. Fernando Salas allowed a monstrous Home Run to Kennys Vargas and a subsequent hit to Robbie Grossman, but he too got a pair of outs to start the 8th. Jerry Blevins came in and got Eduardo Escobar to finish out the 8th, and what the hell, at that point they may as well send him out for the 9th as well, and they did, and he very quickly and quietly set down the Twins in order to pick up his second save in the past week.

And, of course, later in the afternoon the Cardinals beat the Giants once again, and with that the Mets now find themselves clean in front in the NL Wildcard race. I'm still baffled at how this has all come to pass, but at the same time I'm not sure anyone can legitimately complain. After everything that's gone on, the Mets now find themselves heading into the season's final two weeks in possession of a Playoff spot and not only that, they'd host a Wildcard game on top of it. I know that in the past the final two weeks of the season have involved a lot of weird things for the Mets, and who knows what's coming down the pike this season, but the trepidation of prior seasons maybe doesn't seem quite so bad this year.

Then again, ask me that question in a week. Then ask me again in 10 days. And so on, and so forth...

Perseverance

The Mets of course began the day with the news that Jacob deGrom was lost for the season, one day after it was announced that he would be starting on Sunday. This isn't good, but as I've said, I'd rather have the Mets go to the whip with healthy arms that might lack pizzazz as opposed to trying to force someone who's hurt to come back and risk him pitching ineffectively or, worse, injuring himself further. So if nothing else, and if you can believe it I'm taking the silver lining route here, we have a real, legitimate answer to what's been ailing deGrom, and also no false set of expectations that he'll at some point be back. It's a drag, but then again, just about everything that's happened this season injury-wise has been a drag.

And yet the Mets as a team continue to process this information and go out and win games anyway, and they do so in all sorts of strange ways. They already won a game this week when a guy hit his first Major League Home Run in extra innings. Last night, the Mets won because Curtis Granderson came up in the 11th inning with the Mets down a run and hit a Home Run to tie the game, and followed that up by coming up in the 12th inning and hitting another Home Run to win the game, so, you know, why not? Why not get a pair of Home Runs from the same guy in back-to-back extra innings?

Seth Lugo, whose general M.O. has basically been to eat innings while keeping the Mets in the game, did that again. He wasn't at his best; he seemed a bit wild early, but outside of a 3rd inning Home Run from Eddie Rosario he allowed the Twins nothing of consequence over his 5 innings of work. This was fortunate, because the Mets were doing nothing against Ervin Santana. Santana continues to toil away for a woefully overmatched Twins team and, well, the Mets saw a bit of him back when he pitched for Atlanta that time and it seems he hasn't changed much. Santana had the Mets stopped cold through 7 innings and only in the 7th did they pose a credible threat, and even then Santana struck out Michael Conforto to end the inning and finish out his night.

And, of course, as soon as Santana left the game, the Mets tied the score. Ryan Pressly, who I suppose is posing as Minnesota's setup man (if you asked me who their closer was I probably wouldn't be able to tell you), gave up a first pitch hit to Jose Reyes, wild pitched him to 2nd and then Reyes moved to 3rd on a Cabrera ground out. And that brought up Cespedes, and for whatever reason teams continue to pitch to Cespedes in opportunities where he can beat them. Miami did it and it wrecked their precious little season. Minnesota did it and ended up getting beat as well, as Cespedes just flicked a 3-2 pitch over the 2nd baseman's head for the tying hit.

And, so, it then became a bullpen fest. The Mets had already burned through Josh Smoker, Fernando Salas, Jerry Blevins, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia by time the game moved to the 10th, and so the game was turned over to Hansel Robles. The Twins countered with several pitchers you've never heard of, unless you're somehow related to J.T. Chargois or Alex Wimmers. Robles moved to the 10th, but in the 11th he was burned, and I mean legitimately burned, by Byron Buxton, who may be starting to get his sea legs under him. Buxton hit a Home Run up into a part of Citi Field where it seems only people named "Miguel Cabrera" or "Cespedes" can reach and the Twins not only had a lead, but a chance to use their closer and for me, a chance to see who their closer actually is.

Brandon Kintzler, said Twins Closer, came in to try to close things out in the last of the 11th and of course gave up a Home Run to Curtis Granderson on his 2nd pitch to re-tie the game at 2-2. Kintzler then appeared ready to just end things right there, giving up subsequent hits to T.J. Rivera and Brandon Nimmo, which brought up Kevin Plawecki—remember him?—for his first At Bat since June or thereabouts. Plawecki had a hard time up here earlier in the year and this time just hit into bad luck as his line shot glanced off Kintzler's glove and right to Brian Dozier, who threw him out. Kintzler then hit Matt Reynolds with a pitch, and then struck out Jose Reyes, which meant that after all that crotch-grabbing, we were just going to play more baseball.

Josh Edgin pitched the 12th inning for the Mets without incident. Michael Tonkin entered for Minnesota and retired the first two batters, then was subsequently removed by Paul Molitor in favor of Ryan O'Rourke—you know, the great Ryan O'Rourke. I'm not sure why at this point Molitor felt he needed to play matchups, but Granderson had one of those At Bats that Cespedes usually has, where he starts fouling off pitch after pitch and eventually gets something he can handle, and he did, and he hit it down into the little slip of seats in the Right Field corner for the game-winning Home Run and the Mets had won this absurd mess of a game 3-2.

And, of course, shortly after the Mets won, the Cardinals won, coming back on the Giants to win and knock the Giants back into a tie with the Mets for the first Wildcard. Can you believe this? The Mets played the Giants about a month ago at perhaps their worst point in the season, and now they're not only tied but because they hold the tiebreaker, the Mets are, in fact, in position to host the Wildcard game. But, they're not there yet. They have to keep winning these games against teams that are clearly overmatched.

Cap Trade Friday

The Mets began their final homestand of the season Friday night, which is something that I usually look at kind of wistfully, although this year not so much. It seems as though it's arrived rather quickly this year. Maybe it always feels that way. This year, though, it has the odd juxtaposition of the overwhelmingly likely scenario that, come September 25th, the Mets will play their final home game of the season but nobody will know for certain whether or not it's actually going to be their final home game of the season.

Regardless, you want to enjoy the time we have left as much as possible, and I'll be at 4 games on this final homestand, the first of which was this evening, in a game against a team I've never actually seen play the Mets before, the Minnesota Twins. This isn't the first time I've seen the Twins--I in fact saw them play in Toronto three years ago--but now I get to cross them off the list of teams I've never seen play the Mets. This now leaves the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers as the lone teams I've never seen--and Texas will be in town next season.

But next year is rather far away and the Mets still have a Pennant Race to deal with and so the Mets and Twins were my 18th game of the season. I have gone over my choice of game hat over the years and for 2016 I'd been wearing a new hat, with the 2015 World Series logo on it. It's proven to be middling in terms of luck and at my last game, I discovered something rather disturbing about it. I'd bought it at size 7 1/2, thinking that was my preferred cap size. But it never fit properly. It seemed too large in some areas and just didn't look right. At my last game, my other half, who has taken to wearing my old game hats, was complaining about it and wondered why I didn't go back to wearing last year's game hat, a 2012 50th Anniversary cap, since that seemed to have much more luck in it. She was wearing it and I compared them, and of course that cap fit much better. Surprise, surprise, that cap was 7 3/8! No wonder I'd had the stink this year! I was wearing a cap that was too big. So, tonight, I wore the old hat. As you now know, the Mets won, 3-0. So I think, superstition being what it is, I have to go back to the old cap. The fate of the Mets depends on this.

The fate of the Mets also depends on guys who played key in tonight's win. Bartolo Colon was chief among them. Colon right now defies any and all logic and is just a force of nature that we should just sit back and marvel at. He befuddled a young and inexperienced Twins lineup for 7 innings, allowing 3 hits, 2 walks (both to Joe Mauer) and no runs while striking out 6. He walked Mauer in the 1st and immediately got Jorge Polanco to follow by hitting into a DP. In the 3rd inning, he allowed the Twins to load the bases with two outs, but managed to get Polanco to fly out. In the 4th, Max Kepler reached when Cespedes nonchalantly dropped a fly ball directly at him (he gave no fucks, in typical Cespedes fashion), but Colon then proceeded to pick Kepler off 1st base.

He'd been backed minimally, as all the Mets were able to muster off of Francisco Berrios and a bevy of obscure relievers with bland names to that point were back-to-back Home Runs by Jose Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera in the 3rd. Berrios, who appears to be no older than 16, was ripe for the taking, as he had demon stuff but little control and seemed content to hand the Mets plenty of runners, but a key hit never came. Berrios was gone after 4 innings, and outside of one rally in the 7th inning that culminated with an RBI single from Yoenis Cespedes.

It seemed like it would be a coast to the finish; the Twins were overmatched by Colon, and again by Addison Reed in the 8th, but in the 9th Jeurys Familia made things unnecessarily sweaty by walking Mauer, and then with two outs walking Kurt Suzuki, the only two players in the Twins lineup who seem to have any sort of Major League tenure to them, and this brought up a rather burly gentleman named Kennys Vargas. Vargas hit a towering fly ball out to Left which, for a second, looked horrifyingly like it might land in a bad place, but it didn't quite have the legs and Cespedes settled under it and allowed everyone to exhale as he gloved it for the final out.

So, now 15 games remain for the Mets and they're still holding steady in that 2nd Wildcard spot, and still sandwiched directly in between the Cardinals and Giants, who happen to be playing each other at press time. It may end up being that the Giants will hold on to the 1st Wildcard spot, but if they can continue to beat the Cardinals and open up a little distance between them and the Mets, that would be just as helpful. As usual, the Mets just need to worry about themselves. That seems to be the most important thing here.

Pit Stop

This game had to be made up at some point, since MLB isn't really fond of letting teams punt games entirely, even if it holds no bearing on any sort of playoff berth. And I guess Minneapolis is sort of halfway between San Diego and New York, if you're going by way of Pickle Lake, so why not drop in and play a Baseball game? It ain't no thang.

Man, I'm this snarky after the Mets won? Imagine if they'd lost.

Fortunately, they didn't lose, and so the road trip from April that saw 2 games snowed out, a 3rd game frozen out and 5 of 7 games played in conditions bordering on the inhumane is now finally complete, with the Mets having made two of these little "side trips" and coming away with two wins.

Monday, the Mets essentially had a brief layover in Minneapolis, arriving in town late Sunday night to play a Monday afternoon game that was, for them, quick. So quick, in fact, that if you blinked, you probably forgot they even had a game today. I didn't, although I was engrossed enough at work that I actually missed the beginning of the game. I've made mention at times that I will often keep WFAN streaming on my computer at work, but if there's a game on, I have to switch to a portable radio because for whatever reason, MLB blacks out the internet stream of live games. But they're not consistent with it. And sometimes, if I'm not paying attention, I'll all of a sudden start listening again and wonder why I've got a replay of Boomer and Carton on. This is what happened today, so by time I tuned in, the Mets were already up 2-0 and Dillon Gee was cruising right along.

Gee, who's been a large part of the Mets resurgence, came through with another fine start on the heels of several other fine starts he's had, and it's gotten to the point that people are actually starting to recognize Dillon Gee as a good pitcher in his own right, and as pivotal a part of the Mets rotation going forward as anybody they've got in the system. Sure, he doesn't have the general panache of Matt Harvey or Zack Wheeler, or really any other pitcher in the rotation right now (Not including Carlos Torres, since he really doesn't count in deference to Jenrry Mejia), but what he has done is get people out consistently over a stretch of time where it's been pretty important for him to do so. Particularly when things like, say, his job were on the line. But he's proven up to the challenge and today was another good example of that. Given an early lead, Gee set out and smashed the flea—in this case an overmatched and anemic Twins lineup—with a sledgehammer, only allowing 1 run in 7.2 innings of work, and even that was unearned courtesy of an error by the irritatingly spastic Daniel Murphy. The end result was about 12 well-spent hours in Minneapolis, before finally and in some cases mercifully heading home.

Other items of housekeeping: Perhaps the least surprising move of the season is the non-return of Travis d'Arnaud to AAA with John Buck returning to the team tomorrow. d'Arnaud doesn't have a hit in 3 games, but I don't see anyone going nuts about that, particularly considering the fact that he's drawn 5 walks in the process. He's also probably going to see a majority of the playing time down the stretch, which is, of course, what he's here for. Gone is Anthony Recker, whom I'm sure we will remember about as fondly as, say, Vance Wilson or any other light-hitting backup Catcher. Braves in this week and I'm making an unannounced appearance tonight, in order to continue my streak of having seen at least one Mets/Braves game every year since 1998. This may or may not be a good idea, but with Zack Wheeler on the mound it will at least be interesting.

Harvey's Creed

It didn't snow in Minnesota on Saturday, although I suppose if it had, it probably wouldn't have been anything more than a minor irritant for Matt Harvey, who seems to be able to perform at a very high level in any set of circumstances. His first start came in a frigid wind tunnel at Citi Field, and although the weather was nicer in Philadelphia, he was once again facing some harsh elements in his 3rd start. Doesn't matter. The result has been pretty much the same every time out.

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays this breakaway talent from the swift dispatching of his opponent. Thus may be the creed of Matt Harvey, every time he takes the mound.

Whatever barely noticeable loss of command Harvey suffered in his second start, when he gave up 1 run on 3 hits was clearly back on Saturday, since he made the Twins lineup look pretty much hopeless instead of the mere cluelessness he inflicted on the Phillies. For a while there, it looked like he had a pretty solid shot at throwing a No Hitter before Justin Morneau took a whac-a-mole swing at a slider and somehow just barely clanged it off the foul pole. Harvey did give up another hit in the 8th to Brian Dozier, but that was a single of little consequence. Pretty much everyone else the Twins sent up against Harvey met the same fate. No, Harvey didn't get his No Hitter, although if his first three starts this season are any indication, he certainly has as good a chance as any to throw one at some point (and it's a lot easier to make a comment like that after June 1st, 2012).

With the temperature in Minneapolis hovering around the freezing mark, I suppose Harvey took a page from the Crash Davis "Strikeouts are Facist" book and decided to try to pitch to contact a bit more. The line reads 8 innings, a career-best, 2 hits, 1 run, 2 walks and an economical 6 strikeouts over his 100 pitches. For the season, he's pitched what amounts to a pretty good game for any pitcher, 6 hits, 2 runs, except that he's spread it out over 3 games and 22 innings, and mixed in 25 strikeouts for good measure. And he's also emerged among the league leaders in gushing Tweets, earning the praise of Tampa Bay's David Price, and drawing several gushing raves from Dwight Gooden.

There was a rest of the game around Harvey, though not that you'd notice, but after their 16-run salute on Friday, the Mets were held in check by fellow Binghamton University alum Scott Diamond (currently the only Bearcat to ever pitch in the Major Leagues—Binghamton is not known for its Baseball team...) before he unraveled in the 5th and the Mets scored 4 runs on 7 consecutive hits. In his first save opportunity of the season, Bobby Parnell made things somewhat hairy, allowing a run and the tying run to the plate, but he eventually got out of the inning and the Mets were primed to go for a sweep on Sunday. Until the Minnesota Weather reared its ugly head once again and dumped what I'm told was the dreaded "wintry mix" on the region. The subsequent postponement means the Mets have earned themselves a second trip to Minneapolis in August, when the weather should most certainly be better. At least I hope that's the case.

Minnesoter

One of the more asinine set of circumstances for a Mets game was brought about by the unceremonious switch of the Astros from the National League Central to the American League West. The Mets, now playing in a balanced league, would now have to play interleague series at random, arbitrary times, rather than a bunch in June like we're used to. The scheduling geniuses, then, thought it best for the Mets to take a road trip to play the Minnesota Twins in their lovely new open-air Stadium, Target Field, in the middle of April.

One day after a major snowstorm dumped 5 inches of snow in Minneapolis.;

On a night where the temperature was forecast at a brisk 34 degrees.

In a city where they'd never won a game.

These weird Interleague trips to bizarre places they rarely go (Minnesota is among a select group that includes places like Anaheim, Oakland and Seattle) tend not to go well for the Mets. In addition to being swept in Minnesota in 2004, I seem to remember an Interleague road trip in 2005 that saw the Mets lose every game in excruciating fashion. As far as I could tell, although the Minnesota Twins have seen themselves fall on some hard times over the past couple of years, the situation seemed to dictate that the Mets probably would struggle, except for Saturday when Matt Harvey was scheduled to pitch.

So the Mets go out and score 5 runs in the top of the first, beating up Vance Worley with a flurry of hits in between a flurry of snow. You remember Vance Worley, right? He used to pitch for the Phillies. The Mets gave him the ol' what for a couple of times last year. And they did it again tonight. True, Worley wasn't helped by an egregious error by Trevor Plouffe, but by that point he'd already made his own bed. 2 runs were in before Worley ever got an out and instead of stopping the bleeding, Worley instead just gave up more hits.

The second inning was no better, and by time Worley departed, he'd given up 6 runs and conveniently left the bases loaded so that the guy who followed him to the mound could give up a Grand Slam to John Buck, closing his line with 9 runs allowed in 1+ innings.

The rout, as they say, was then on, as the Mets hit parade cruised the rest of the way to a resounding 16-5 victory. Jonathon Niese was mostly adequate; given a large lead, he didn't really look comfortable in the elements and the result was too many pitches too early on and a struggle to simply get through 5 innings. I'd expect better out of him against a bad lineup, but then again, I suppose you can only expect so much from a finesse pitcher in 34 degree weather. Offensively, pretty much everyone joined the hit parade. Jordany Valdespin, who has managed to parlay a few good games into a platoon situation with Collin Cowgill, set the stage in each of the first two innings. Daniel Murphy continued his hot start and continues to make me think that the best thing that could have possibly happened to him was getting hurt and missing most of Spring Training. David Wright looks like he's starting to heat up. And John Buck continues to hit everything in sight. All this added up to a resounding victory, rather than a bizarre loss in a weird American League town.

Ultimately, though the 16-run outburst is a great sign, tonight's win is an indictment of both their own offensive inconsistencies and the general ineptitude of their opponent (As I'd mentioned prior to the season, the Twins business model dictates they operate in some bizarre cycle theory where they're really good for 2-3 seasons and then really bad for 2-3 seasons as they replenish their system. Help is on the way for them, but like the Mets, it's still a year off). But, as inept as your opponent may be, you still have to be able to take advantage of it. Tonight, the Mets did that, but remember they struggled to win a series from Florida last weekend. Then again, Matt Harvey is scheduled for Saturday's game. If 39 degrees and the San Diego Padres in New York didn't bother him, why should the Twins in 34 degrees? I'd guess he could go out in a blizzard and strike out 10 batters in 7 innings.

Here Come The Yankees!

Lost in the shuffle of last night's scintillating play-in game was this little nugget. I haven't seen anything about it yet today so it may get glossed over, but if you were paying attention, you heard it.

In the bottom of the 10th inning, the Twins had runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out. Nick Punto was at the plate, and battling hard against Fernando Rodney, when he hit a flare to left, which easily held up for the left fielder, Ryan Raburn. However, the TV call was something like this: "LINE DRIVE BASE HIT! CAUGHT OUT THERE!" Raburn not only made an easy catch, but he subsequently threw out the runner trying to score from 3rd base.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Postseason. Where the announcers are handsome and clueless. You've already heard me sound off several times on Joe Buck, but I think Chip Caray is probably the worst announcer on the national stage. Seriously. These guys are only in the position they're in because they are the offspring of legendary announcers who knew what they were doing (and for what it's worth, even Jack Buck and Harry Caray had their limitations). And yet, here they are, painting a paltry word picture for the postseason. Chip Caray, if you recall, is the same announcer who did the 2007 Indians/Yankees ALDS. With two out and nobody on in the bottom of the 8th inning of the 4th game, with the Yankees trailing by 3 runs, someone on the Yankees got a hit. This was punctuated by Chip Caray screaming, "HERE COME THE YANKEES!" Of course, the next hitter made an out and the Yankees were subsequently eliminated that night. But, hey, if one hit is all they need, then "HERE COME THE YANKEES!" indeed.

That said, how about some Division Series matchups.
I'll start with the National league since I don't like any of the teams that are playing and I refuse to root for any of them. Except maybe the Rockies.

Colorado Rockies (92-70) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (93-69)
This looks somewhat familiar. But since that matchup 2 years ago, a lot has happened. It seems like a different lifetime. Since then, the Phillies went on to become World Series Champions while the Rockies slogged through a middling 2008. I figured you could forget all about them, but here they are again, two years later, facing the Phillies yet again. Conventional wisdom probably favors the Phillies in this series, but as you all know, I cannot in good conscience pick the Phillies to win anything, especially since they went through the regular season mostly unchallenged and won the NL East by default. It helps when you play the Washington Nationals 44 times in one season, or at least that's what it seemed like. This in spite of a horrendous bullpen that continually submarined them at some bad moments. It's a bunch that can't be trusted, and given the crucible that is Postseason Baseball, it's something that will haunt this team in the end.
My Pick: Rockies in 4. Philly wins one at home but cannot win once the series moves to Colorado. Lidge will blow Game 3.

St. Louis Cardinals (91-71) vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (95-67)
I don't like either of these teams and it's almost enough for me to not want to pay any attention to this series. They are both incredibly boring teams that each have one superstar and a solid group of role players. So let them beat each other up and whoever wins, wins. I don't care. However, given that I have to make a pick, I'll say this. The Game 1 matchup is Chris Carpenter for the Cardinals and Wolfie for the Dodgers. That should say it all right there.
My pick: Cardinals in 5.

Boston Red Sox (95-67) vs. Anaheim Angels (97-65)
What's a postseason without a Red Sox/Angels ALDS? I suppose it's the Yankee fan's dream that these two teams beat each other up and the winner is too exhausted to continue on in the ALCS. But they both have their strong points. Oh, who am I kidding. I barely pay attention to the AL. I just know that these two teams are matching up, and the Red Sox usually win when these two teams play, so I'm going to pick them.
My pick: Red Sox in 4.

Minnesota Twins (87-76) vs. New York Yankees (134-28)
Complete and total mismatch. I don't care who's catching for the Yankees, they will flatten the Twins. In fact, I don't think the Twins should even bother showing up. Why subject themselves to the embarrassment? We all know what will happen. CC Sabathia is going to throw a 2-hit shutout in Game 1, Burnett will win game 2 and that'll be that. I predict big things from all the big guys, Jeter, Tex, even A-Rod. They'll show Joe Mauer who the MVP really is. Just remember, Chip Caray deemed it so. HERE COME THE YANKEES!
My pick: Yankees in 2.

So, there we have it. If you can tolerate Baseball at this point, these should be some good series. Otherwise, the Rangers are off to a 2-0 start!

Samuel Beckett Special

While I am immersed in Theatrics of another kind, these games are pretty much a rumor to me; I'm relegated to some SportsCenter clips late at night, and MLB GameCast for a few moments at a time. Last night, I checked the score and saw it 5-0 Twins in the 3rd. My reaction: "This game is toast." Last night's game can only be chalked up as one of those Waiting For Godot games. "Nothing to be done." Facing the consensus Best Pitcher in Baseball, the Mets barely made a peep as Johan Santana shut them down and shut them out on 4 hits.

I don't think a game like this can erase the good feelings that Monday Night's game perpetuated, simply because you knew that Santana was at worst going to be very tough. It's usually around this time of the year that he begins to really kick it into high gear. Never a big first-half pitcher, never started an All-Star game, but by season's end, he somehow has managed to win 15 in a row, and his ERA is hovering around 2.50. He's one of the toughest customers in the game, and even if the Mets were hitting, Santana likely would have had his way with them.

On the other side, it's a little disturbing to see Sosa really struggle for the second time in a row. You have to wonder if whether or not the word is getting around about him, or whether or not his strong performance in May and early June was simply flukish. Next up for him will be the Cardinals, a team that hasn't hit much, so that should be a true litmus test. If he's good, then he just had some bad outings against a couple of hot teams. If not...Oy veh.

The true test, however, of whether or not the team as a whole is on the rebound from the miserable stretch of the past 3 weeks will be tonight, with Oliver Perez on the mound, off his brilliant start against the Yankees, against future Journeyman Scott Baker. If the Mets show up and pound out some hits and runs, then we know that the corner may have been turned, and last night was just too much Santana.