Game Notes

Gorgeous day game out at Shea yesterday, with the Mets winning their sixth in a row in only slightly irritating fashion. Went with a solid six-deep crew, got some sun, and watched the Giants offense put up a miraculous three runs on three hits. Thoughts? Thoughts.

• John Maine looked like crap for most of his truncated outing. Whenever I hear Gary Cohen go on about how Maine hates his high pitch counts, and wants to become more efficient ... it's not that I don't believe that Maine wants such a thing. It's just that he never seems to be able to keep up any kind of rhythm for more than a game at a time. Now, he was coming off a wrist twinge from his previous start, and it made sense that his location wasn't going to be spot-on. It didn't actually matter here, as the Giants are hacktastic enough for Maine's imperfect command and control not to matter, and he'll go down as having been effectively wild for striking out seven guys in less than five innings. But he wasn't 'better' yet, as far as I could tell. (Although I will say that Randy Winn's game-tying two-run double in the fifth was as big of a bullshit Luis Castillo swing as I've seen in a while. From the upper deck directly behind home plate it looked like he put a nice level swing on the ball. Yeah, right. The replay showed his hands choked up roughly to Greenwich, and an ugly little slice turned into a bloop down the line. Not really Maine's fault.

• Barry Zito ... there's no bullet-dodging like crunch-time bullet dodging. There but for the grace of God go the Mets and $126 million. I wonder where Rick Peterson was in the Zito Free Agent Sweepstakes. Do we think that he was lobbying the front office to sign him, on the grounds that he knew him and had had plenty of success with the guy in Oakland? The contemporaneous record doesn't show any revealing Peterson quotes, and I don't recall the Mets ever really being in the hunt once it became clear the Rangers were going to go above five years. But it still makes you wonder, especially now that the recently-deposed Peterson is again being linked with his former protege. Maybe we were closer to the abyss than we expected, I don't know. All I know is that Zito, his ability to strike out Brian Schneider on an 82-mph fastball notwithstanding, is the biggest loser in the game. Nothing gets a section going like a "Zito Sucks!" cheer. Totally.
  

• Mmm ... soft-serve in a baseball helmet.

• At one point, two members of our sextet (Kid Flash and Fabio) broke off from the group to take in the game from another angle, and settled in a fairly empty section off to the third base side of the upper deck. The only other proximate fans turned out to be a young group of Hasidic Yankee fans, who immediately started pissing the shit out of our heroes. The kids were apparently all wearing Bombers gear, yelling "Mets suck!" at regular intervals and trying to get "Let's go Giants!" cheers started. Ghastly. Naturally, this prompted the Kid, rather impetuous for a long-term professional educator, to start lobbing Starburst fruit chews in their direction. The Hasids noticed, and a bit of a stalemate ensued, resulting in a useless word of admonishment from the Hasids' 20-year-old chaperone, and the Kid eventually flipping the whole group the bird. Apparently, a nearby older couple had watched the whole exchange with horrified mien, requiring the Kid to turn to them and deadpan his usual get-out-of-jail excuse. "It's okay, ma'am. I'm a teacher."

• In any case, a couple innings later on their way back to our seats, Fabio "accidentally" brushed against the aisle Jew's Yankee cap and "knocked it off." Of course, inside the kid's cap was his yarmulke, which likewise fell off and tumbled a couple of rows into some mustard-covered Nathan's wrappers. Needless to say, everyone got out of dodge before the words "hate crime" could be uttered. Just better for business that way.

• After the game, with the news of Moises Alou's severed spinal cord being announced, all anyone wanted to talk about on ESPN-1050 was the possibility of the Mets signing Barry Bonds. We've covered this here at Y2K for more than a month now, but it's good to see the mainstream media finally getting its head out of its ass. Shockingly, the consensus among the callers and hosts was that it would be crazy for the Mets not to take a shot at him for the minimum, which of course I agree with. ESPN's resident Albanian, Tim Kurkjian, then came on the air and hedged a little bit only to conclude that if any team could absorb the PR blow, it would be the Mets. Which I also agree with.
  

• We've got a need, we've got the money (everyone does, but ...), and we've got a black manager. Bing bang boom.

• Then again, watch out. Straight-talking Billy Wagner, who usually calls out everyone from Cal Ripken to the Pope during his live-wire interviews, was asked about the possibility of Bonds coming to the Mets during his postgame call-in. And I'll be durned if the hard-talkin' Virginian didn't suddenly go all wobbly, McCain-style, on his hosts. Lots of hemming and hawing, lots of "Barry's got a great track record" dodges, lots of pregnant pauses on a segment where the moderators usually can't get a word in edgewise. The basic conclusion was the Wagner hopes that the clubhouse wouldn't respond poorly to Bonds' arrival. Well, that was the question, asshole. You're in there. Would it?

• Caught a ride home from the game, which was the first time I've come or gone from Shea that wasn't on the No. 7 train. And I will say this -- nothing makes you appreciate public transportation more than having to drive around this city's hellish roads at rush hour. What a joke. In a not really related story, all of our California readers should vote "Yes!" on Prop 1.

• Good to see the Pirates pull one out against the Yankees last night to stem that tide. Even after losing four in a row, the Rays still have the best record in baseball. Also, as long as Joe Girardi wants to keep starting Jose Molina and his .263 OBP, that's just dandy with me. Knock yourself out. If I were Georgie, I'd be pissed too.

• Very winnable series against the New Rocks this weekend, while the Phillies get to host the D-Backs and Florida out on Los Angeles. We get the following starters:

• Aaron Cook (11-6, 3.66 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, sinkerballer who doesn't strike out anyone vs. Perez;
• Ubaldo Jimenez (4-8, 4.21 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, has no clue where the ball's going) vs. Petey;
• Mark Redman (2-4, 7.07 ERA, 1.60 WHIP, fire at will) vs. the New Mike Pelfrey