The X-Man and SM Cometh

Hey everyone, A Friend of Mr. Glass' here. It's an exciting day here at Y2K as your boy and mine Sippy Momo has flown in from the San Francisco office to make sure everything's under control here in New York.

Tonight, the Y2K team makes its triumphant return to Shea Stadium with, I'm sure, some of the worst seats in the house. If you're gonna be at the game and you want to wave to each other from across the stadium or something, give a call to the Glass or the SM.

Now granted, a midseason game against the Cincinnati Reds is only so exciting. But the truth is it'd be nice to put ourselves in position to take 3 of 4 against a plus-.500 team on our home turf.

Yesterday's win was fueled by the 2-homer performance of Xavier Nady, which stood on the shoulders of a 1st inning blast by Carlos Delgado.

Delgado clearly didn't read any Mets blogs yesterday. If he had read, say, Y2K, MetsGeek, Mike's Mets, or countless others, he'd have known that he wasn't supposed to be a good hitter at Shea Stadium. Thankfully, Delgado doesn't read the rantings and ravings of overenthusiastic Mets fans.

And thankfully, neither does Willie Randolph. If he had, he might have heard the rumblings eminating from the blogosphere that Nady didn't necessarily deserve the starter's spot when he returned from the DL.

I don't want to overstate the momentum generated by the blogosphere about making Milledge the starter, but there was some discussion. I certainly had numerous discussions with people who argued that trading the X-Man for another arm in the bullpen (if a starter couldn't be had) would be a good idea.

But Willie wasn't fazed, not by his team's 12-5 record with Nady, nor by the 8-game winning streak that propelled them.

"Nady's my rightfielder," Willie said, much to the dismay of some Mets fans who criticize Willie for his use of the personal possessive "my" rather than the collective possessive "our". (These Mets fans are also known to criticize Willie for the fact that the Mets don't have a bigger lead in the NL East right now, or a better record overall.)

Yesterday, Nady rewarded his manager's trust. I'm glad to have him back. Nady intrigues me as a player. The guy's never had 500 at-bats in a single season. Hell, he's never had 400.

But he puts up the kinds of numbers that make you wonder what he could do if he ever had the chance. This year he's averaging a home run every 15.36 times to the dish. Over 500 at-bats, that averages out to 32.55 home runs. I'm buying it out of our 7th hitter.

He's the kind of player in the field that only a mother could love, but his stick has been a fine addition to the Mets. The future belongs to Milledge, but next year is now, boys and girls, and I for one am glad that the X-Man looks like more than trade bait.

(Meanwhile, it's hard, if not impossible, to get a picture of Xavier Nady in a Mets uniform. Salt.)

I'm also glad that the back end of our rotation has been rounding into shape the past couple weeks. Check the lines on Alay Soler, Steve Trachsel, and El Duque their last three times out and they really don't look so bad.

As a matter of fact, Soler (22 IP, 2 ER) and El Duque (19 IP, 5 ER) have been terrific. Trachsel, well, he was better last night.

Anyway, that's all I got. Good looks tonight at Shea -- let's go for that series win.

- A.F.O.M.G.