Pedro And The New Heroes Of The East

You have to wonder which was more important last night, seeing Pedro earn career win number 200 against the Braves or seeing the Mets as a team perform a baseball version of dunking the Braves, wherein the subject is immersed in a vat of water until they are pulled up to confess they are no longer champions of the NL East and if they don't confess, they are dunked again and again until they do.


Mets, dunking Braves until they confess they are inferior!

Barely two weeks into the season and the Mets already lead the Braves by five full games, beating the Braves in the way the Braves usually beat them: outplaying, outperforming and outscoring the opponent.

"Good pitching, some power, good relief, good defense," Glavine said of how the Braves were beat. "And no mistakes." Oh, Tommy Boy, it must finally feel good to be a Met.


Pedro is now 200-84, the fewest losses for any of the 103 pitchers with 200 wins. Question is, will he go to the Hall of Fame in a Mets or a Red Sox cap?

W-L Pct.
Pedro Martinez 200-84 .704
Whitey Ford 236-106 .690
Lefty Grove 300-141 .680
Christy Mathewson 373-188 .665
Roger Clemens 341-172 .665
Randy Johnson 265-137 .659

Carlos Delgado and Xavier Nady each homered and drove in two runs for the Mets (10-2), who improved the best record in baseball and extended the fastest start in franchise history and the best thing about it was the Braves won't be able to whinge about not having Larry Jones or Renteria or otherwise try to cheapen this important victory because the Mets didn't have Cliff Floyd or Carlos Beltran either.

For Delgado, it was his 3rd homer in 5 games and he's hitting at a .375 clip whilst David Wright, going 0 for 4, dropped to a more credible .391.

Lo Duca, who joined Nady with three hits of his own, probably put it best about the New Mets thinking about the Braves:

"When somebody has your number, you’ve got to play extra hard,” he added. “We need to turn the tide." (notice that he didn't say you have to feel so much pressure you choke...)

Pedro stayed in for an incredible 108 pitches (considering the magical toe issue and his lack of work in Spring Training,) and left after 6 2/3 innings, with two outs and a runner on first, giving way to Duaner Sanchez, the true hero of the bullpen, who carried the game into the 9th for Billy Wagner without incident, striking out two of the four Braves he faced as the Shea winds added movement to breaking balls, and Sanchez knew how to use them.

And Billy, Mr Sandman, allowed only one Brave to get on base whilst striking out two, fittingly, the last was former Met Todd Pratt and, the lone baserunner was only there after he was hit by Wagner. Fair enough. If you're going to let a Brave on base, make him pay for it.

So that was it. One game against the Braves, one win. It means the world to Pedro to earn his 200th and although the season is young, this means the world to the Mets as well even if it is only the first of 9 games to be played against the Braves over the next 21 days, these 21 days which will shape the NL East and mark the new rulers.

And for Pedro, recognition that for all those who doubted him, he is indeed, a great pitcher:



*****

What is the verdict on Our Team, Our Time?

No doubt, Meet the Mets is a cornball song with boring lyrics but jesus, Our Team, Our Time, by any stretch of the imagination, simply sucks. Nothing sucks more than fake rap songs except maybe fake rap songs sung by grandmothers. I don't know if this is meant to be rap or simply hip hop or just something to make you want to bring your own bat to the game and smash the opposition's skull, but it is certainly more aggressive than "bring your kiddies and bring your wife" yet short of "bring your Glocks and bring your knives", making this something of an enigma in that you do not know precisely what the message is. Are we evil, are we simply street smart, are we culturally diverse? Musically, this doesn't inspire images of baseball, more like sitting in someone's basement whilst they work out some stupid little song on their Casio keyboard.


Bring Me A Bucket, I'm Going To Throw Up.

And how many times do they repeat that stupid phrase in the song? Eleven bloody times, that's how many. "It was fans inspired to express their excitement in a song about this year's team, and we thought it was a pretty good effort," said chucklehead Dave Howard, the Mets' executive vice president of business cockups and operations, of the new song. "It was a pretty cool song."

Pretty cool song my arse. If they want it to be cool, why don't they lay out some of those millions and get a real band to come up with a real song and give us something to be proud of?