Everything's Not Lost: Part VI

The sweet sounds of Coldplay echoed throughout the stadium. A fine tradition especially pleasing to the Zen Meathead, Sip, unlike Shea's newest 8th inning tradition: a stadium sing along to "Sweet Caroline."

Sweet Caroline is Fenway's song. It has been for a long time. To try and rip that off is just wrong. End of story.

Last night's game stunk.

Amazingly, we were up 6-4 heading into the top of the 7th. We had not only survived the dreaded Maine vs. Caprenter matchup, but we ended up victorious in the game inside of the game.

We were all set to take a 2-0 lead back to St. Louis. But then it all unraveled.

Albert Pujol's 194 pitch AB in the 7th inning was the difference maker. After retiring Eckstein and Duncan to start the inning, Mota went to work with Pujols. Pujols showed us why he is the game's best hitter.

15 mintues later and I don't even know how many balls fouled off, Pujols lined a single to center.
Then Edmonds walked on 4 pitches.

My buddy Robbie X pointed out, this is where Willie lost the game.

Mota was fried. Pujols took the juice out of him. After going ahead 0-2 on Scott Spiezio, Mota grooved a 96 mph fastball leading to Spiezio's 2-run double.

I wrote last week about how it is wrong to second guess, but this was the logical time to bring in Heilman. He is our big setup guy and is especially effective against lefties.

Either way, the decision was made.

From there, we need to tip the hats to the Cardinals.

David Eckstein's 15 pitch AB in the 8th inning. So Taguchi's 10 pitch AB leading up his leadoff home run in the 9th.

The Cardinals hitters just played great baseball. They wore out our pitchers and capitalized from this advantage.

Was bringing Wagner in in the 9th the right move? That is debatable. If you are trying to win on Friday night, the answer is yes. You bring in your closer at home to pitch the top of the 9th.

At the same time, we play 5 in a row this weekend, and the thought of Wagner pitching tonight now has me terrified. If he is an average on the second night of a back to back then he is a below average closer on the third night.

Yes, yesterday's loss was dejecting. But this is playoff baseball and these things are going to happen.

The Mets were not going to go out there and win 11 straight and take the World Series. This isn't Pleasantville.

Which is why it is important that we look at the bigger picture.

Going into Game 1, a split at home seemed realistic. A split is what we got.

Now we have our lousy 3,4 (Trachsel and Perez) going against their lousy 3,4 (Suppan and Reyes).

For the first time though, the Mets find themselves playing slightly on their heels.

I think this is a good thing. Momentum hasn't shifted to St. Louis. That team, for good reason, is scared shitless of us.

Even if we lose tonight, it is not yet time to throw away the season.

This team has proven time and time again that it can bounce back. They have proven time and time again that they can get hot when they need to.

And most importantly, they are a better team than the Cardinals. In the same way that they should have won a best of 7 series against them, they should now win a best of 5.

I enjoy the sweat. I live for the nervuos energy.

We have Y2K Cy Young favorite Shitty Trax on the mound tonight, and I gotta say, I'm ok with that.

To the next step.

VCD,

SM