The Positives of Being the Same Old Mets

So all was not lost yesterday.

Jack Bauer was on Jay Leno, making for maybe the greatest interview since the Hojo-Roger McDowell hotfoot interview circa '86.

On Monday I said, lose 2 of 3 and we are the same old Mets. Well, not only did we lose 2 out of 3, but we lost 2 extremely painful games. We had something like 7 hits in 2 games and we really didn't look good in doing so.



Down Chipper but up a dominating Andruw Jones and two outstanding pitching performances from Kyle Davies and Tim Hudson, the Braves made the Mets look all of a sudden like the same old Mets.

Old Mets!!!

Going into this series if you would have told me that we would have taken 1 of 3 I would have dropped a big fat F bomb. We would be the Braves' bitch, as we have been for a very long time.

3 days later, I have taken a big fat 180.

Losing this series was the best thing that could happen to this team, its players, and especially us, the fans.

Eleven games into the season and it was as though the last 20 years didn't happen. The Mets were the greatest team EVER. We were all over ESPN, the head story on Baseball Tonight and were all over the National spotlight.

Eleven games into the season and this team had more pressure on it than any team in baseball. Fans were buying their World Series tickets and Happy Will was printing his 2006 World Series t-shirts.



Eleven games and David Wright was MVP, Jose Reyes was an All-Star and Carlos Delgado was the Best. Cleanup hitter. Ever.

Games 12-14 showed us a little something about the 2006 Mets.

That is, they aren't perfect. Players will get hurt (Beltran and Floyd), the pitching will not be perfect (V. Zambrano) and the big bats will struggle (D Wright and Carlos Delgado).

We as fans can't buy our playoff tickets yet and we certainly can't cast the Braves aside.

We can't count on our kids to be veterans. Reyes and Wright are going to struggle and we need to give them some time.

So I was talking to Jared the Runner today and he made a good point. Only we as Mets fans could be down at a time like this. We have to turn around and take a second to see where we are.

Mainly, we are 10-4 and in first place in the division. If you would have told me that this is where we would be 3 weeks ago I would have hit you. But here we are and it appears that we are here to stay.

Every part of this team looks pretty solid. The rotation is solid. The lineup is solid. And most importantly, the pen is solid.

We have a complete team here and we are going to compete.

So now that we are off this invincible cloud that we all floated upon the first couple weeks, we should take a minute to realize what we have. We have a team that will compete for the first time in 6 years.

I don't know about you guys but I am pretty fired up. Off to LA/San Diego to catch up with KFC and the Hulk and then head down to SD to catch our boys at Petco -- let's go!

Vaya con dios,

SM