Champagne Will Have to Wait

A year ago tomorrow was a special day for us around here. September 18, 2006, the day a generation of Mets fans, including many born in the early 1980s, watched the Mets win a division championship for the first time in 18 years.

I remember watching it from my living room, a bottle of Korbel champagne proudly displayed on my living room, begging to be popped. We had a team that had looked invincible all season; we'd "run roughshod over the National League". We'd earned it.

Zoom forward to the present and times aren't quite as heady. We wake today with our team losers of 8 straight to our closest divisional foe. Every year there's a team that seems to bedevil the Mets. Normally it's the Braves. This year, evidently, it's the Phillies.

What's so frustrating about it is that we were in position to win in each of these 8 losses. On some level that's consolation; yeah we lost, but it took that cheap dribbler to do it, or that misplay by Beltran, or that blown save by Wagner.

On another level that's no consolation at all. We've worried about our bullpen all season, and more often than not they're the ones losing these games for us.

We've sensed somehow that this team might lack that killer instinct that last year's team had. If we'd won one of these games the division race would have been over, essentially. We'd have been up 5.5 with 14 to play. Instead it's 3.5.

Do I think we'll win the division? Yes. Are we a lock to do so? Nope, not anymore.

The trick now is to do exactly what we did the last time we suffered a sweep by the Phils. We didn't lick our wounds that time, we went out there and took it to the Braves. This time we draw the Nationals.

From here on out the schedule is very much in our favor. Six with the Nats, seven with the Marlins, one with the Cardinals. If we don't close it out, we've got no one to blame but ourselves.

But still. But still. Just a different kinda season, this one.

But hell, maybe that's not such a bad thing. I remember holding back tears and drinking champagne September 18, 2006, but I don't remember any tickertape parades last October.

I also don't remember any Pedro.

This weekend was frustrating. Everything with the Phillies has been frustrating lately. But at the end of the day, we're still where we want to be.

We may not sip champagne on September 18 this year, but that's no matter.

Besides, no one wanted to clinch on the road anyway.

- A.F.O.M.G.