It Just Don't Matter

(Sincere apologies for the massive delay. A lot of problems with our server. Be sure to check in on Sunday for Cheddar Ben's weekly recap.)

Great news everybody! Know how the Mets just swept the Cardinals? Well, applying the logic that Brian C., one of our loyal Yankee fan readers, employed on Tuesday, us Mets fans no longer have to concern ourselves with that pesky little 3-game sweep we suffered against Boston earlier in the year.

Brian C. admonished Sip on Tuesday for arguing against the Deej-for-MVP brouhaha. He further suggested that Sip should "take a day off from Yankee bashing. After all, we just wiped the floor with the same team that shat on you three straight times earlier this season..... remember that?"

I remember it! But thanks to our tidy 3-game sweep of the Cardinals, I don't have to worry about it! See, the Mets swept the Cardinals. That we know. But did you also know that earlier in the season, the Cardinals swept the Royals? Yessir, from May 19 to May 21, the Cardianls wiped the floor with Kansas City's finest.

Water under the bridge you say? Hardly. See, those same Royals, who were so unceremoniously swept (on their home field no less!) by the Cardinals, recently completed a 3-game sweep of the Red Sox.

So don't you see? The Mets just swept a team who swept a team that swept a team that swept us! So that sweep-job the Red Sox pulled on us doesn't matter!

Sorry, that's all a bit ridiculous, but I had to get it out of my system. What can I say? As the Mets pass their latest milestone en route to their first division crown since 1988, I've got a little extra spring in my step, and I'll be damned if that extra spring doesn't fill me with a bit of whimsy.

And really, why shouldn't we all feel a bit giddy today? Remember all those years of thinking we could really make a run at the division title? Gone are the days when .500 ball seemed like a godsend. Here we are now, 30 games over .500, the class of the National League.

Some people want to apologize, or they don't feel like it's worth advertising the fact that we're the best the National League has to offer. They think it's tantamount to being the biggest fish in a small pond. Sorry, I'm not drinking the kool-aid on that one.

Why is it our responsibility to apologize for the fact that every other team in the National League isn't any good?

Were the Yankees expected to apologize throughout the late '90s and early '00s when three of the teams in their division were awful? When there were a grand total of 5 other AL teams above .500 on August 25 as was the case from 2002-2004 (and was only not the case in 2005 because the Blue Jays were 1 game over the break even mark)?

Look, I realize those other years the teams that were good in the AL were better than the ones that are good in the NL this year, but I'm through apologizing for the rest of the senior circuit.

The Mets have completely outplayed virtually every other team in the National League. We've had rough stretches just like anyone else, those three games in Philadelphia last week (on the heels of a 7-game winning streak, it sure feels like longer than a week, doesn't it?), but on the whole we've proven we're the class of the National League.

So I was pleased yesterday while watching Willie Randolph's postgame conference, when he was asked if the Mets were the best team in the National League.

"I feel we are," Willie said, without skipping a beat. He didn't even have to think about it. Neither do we. The Mets are 30 games over .500. The next best teams in the NL are 6 games over. There's just no comparison.

Now as reassuring a prospect as that is, there are contingent concerns that go along with that dominance.

It's been said a lot on Metsblog recently, but me, I've gotta give the credit to Greg Prince over at Faith and Fear. In our interview, he speculated about how this Mets team would be remembered if it failed to make the World Series, concluding how it would be a bit like 1988.

The 1988 Mets won 100 games but lost in the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles, the eventual champs.

You get no bonus points for losing to the eventual winners, unfortunately, and for these 2006 Mets, there will be no bonus points for a season that ends with 100 wins and a first- or second-round exit from the playoffs.

So it's true what some people have said lately; in a sense, we really have become like the Yankees. See this year, anything short of a World Series appearance is a failure, at least in the context of the 2006 season.

I add that caveat because 2006 is a great stepping stone, no matter how it ends. The promise of this year's team is an emerging juggernaut of Reyes-Beltran-Wright. It's the promise of guys like Lastings Milledge and Mike Pelfrey.

But taken on a micro level, 2006 must end in a World Series appearance or be considered a failure in retrospect. That's not fair necessarily, that's not what we'll tell ourselves in November if that's what happens, but that's how it'll be.

But you know what? I'm not particularly worried about it. I wasn't worried about it on Tuesday before the Cardinals series began, and I'm even less worried about it after bringing out the brooms.

I think these Mets have that swagger that envelops a championship team. They've got the look of a team that knows this is its year.

That's why they win the games that Dave Williams starts. That's why they can suffer injury after injury and still roll through the competition.

It's easy to love a team that's riding high on a 7-game winning streak, but there's an energy and enthusiasm with this team that wasn't there in 1999 or 2000. That team played like underdogs. This team plays like wolves.

Cot damn am I ready for the playoffs to start.

- A.F.O.M.G.