So Back!

We say it all the time around here... baseball's a funny game. One day you're cock of the walk, the next day you're cock of nothing.

Beaten 4 straights by the Phils last week, in, possibly, increasingly devastating fashion as the week wore on, the Mets were cock of nothing last week. My lord did our heads hang low!

And why shouldn't they have? No sooner were we printing our playoff tickets (7 games up!) than we had lost 5 straight and had seen our lead in the East dwindle to a measly 2 games.

But wouldn't you know... four days later and all is well again. Our lead is back up to a tidy 5 games, which, with 25 games left to play, makes for a series of encouraging numerical arguments in favor of the Mets making the playoffs -- such as:

If the Mets go 13-12 the rest of the way, the Phillies would need to go 18-7 to finish the season tied for first place.

If the Mets go 13-12 the rest of the way, the Braves would need to go 20-5 to finish in a first-place tie.

Neither is impossible, but we're starting to deal with increasingly unlikely scenarios. The Mets playing .500 ball doesn't seem likely, nor does an 18-7 run by the Phils, frankly.

When you're young and you're following this game, you really allow yourself to get pretty worked up about the swings. Your team wins a big series, loses a big series, it's everything. As you get older and as you amass more years of baseball misery you become much better at keeping things in perspective.

Doesn't mean I wasn't concerned last week when we got phlogged, because I was, but the sky didn't fall for me. I'm not as young as I used to be, you know.

In any event, the good vibes have returned to this team after a rather long hiatus. We're hitting well, we're pitching well, and best of all, Petey's back.

It's really remarkable the effect Pedro Martinez has on the clubhouse. I'm not in it of course, but you can see what his presence means to his teammates. Everyone just seems looser, and in a game like baseball where so much hinges on your mental state, well, having a guy who can keep everybody smiling goes a long way.

As for his pitching performance yesterday, I'll say I was pretty pleased by what I saw. The Mets have a pretty lousy track record of watching somebody perform in practice, smiling, nodding their heads, giving their thumbs up, and then watching that person perform in real life an prove a train wreck.

(This happened most egregiously with Mo Vaughn, who held up three fingers, took three swings in a batting cage, and with that, convinced Steve Phillips to trade for the guy. It really is comical when you think about it.)

In any event, I had flashes of all those disasters over the years in Pedro's first start. 82mph on the fastball? That wouldn't have worked. Witness the first inning when everything he threw got smacked around.

But Pedro settled in, and by the end of it he was throwing in that high 80s comfort zone that we came to know so well in 2006.

It's not exactly the 95mph he mentioned as a possibility earlier this summer, but we all know how effective this guy can be with an 89-mph fastball, so here's hoping he woke up today with no undue discomfort and that he only gets stronger from here on out.

Either way, it's great having him back. In this incomparable way, he really is the heart and soul of the team. Now let's keep up this momentum why don't we?

- A.F.O.M.G.