Win 70 Sees Maine's Scoreless Habit Shrugged Off

With the NL East virtually sewn up and the postseason still nearly two months away, we turned to our wunderkind's scoreless streak for excitement last night and the kid nearly didn't disappoint.

As you will have all read by now, John Maine went into last night hoping to increase a 23 inning scoreless streak and left last night's game having seen it ended but more importantly, having pitched brilliantly again before the bottom fell out.

The first culprit was Nick Johnson, who blasted a shot in the 4th with two outs, Maine cruising with 26 scoreless innings to shave the Mets' lead to 3-1. Maine recovered to keep the Nats scoreless in the 5th but then in the 6th, Alfonso Soriano hit a 2-run shot with none out, his 37th of the season, to bring the score to 4-3 and after allowing another single, Maine was done for the night after 90 pitches. He pitched 5 1/3 innings, allowing four hits -- two of them home runs -- and a walk. He struck out six.

Perhaps a storyline might have been found had the Mets turned around and lost this game, a second straight to the Nats, but they didn't. Steady as they've been all season, the Mets continued to push runs across the plate with the deciding pair coming on consecutive RBIs in the 7th by Jose Valentin and Michael Tucker and the bullpen was efficient in 3 2/3 innings of scoreless work between Pedro Feliciano, Aaron Heilman, Billy Wagner and 4 strikeouts.

There really isn't much of a story to tell. No pressing controversies, no growing discontent with a particular player, nothing about the team, clicking away in top form, to worry about frankly. Yes, the postseason will bring plenty of worry in due course but for now it would appear the rest of the summer is going to feel like vacation, like those summers when you were a kid yourself and there were endless days of doing absolutely nothing on the horizon until school started up again.

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A few weeks ago, probably the night after a Steve Trachsel drubbing, the mood had become different - the starting pitching had grown inconsistent and with the trade deadline looming like a speed gun radar trap down the road, all sorts of names were tossed about. Time to see what a few of them are doing over the last 30 days along with a few others.

Dontrelle Willis 1-2 4.58 ERA
Barry Zito 4-2 5.30 ERA
Tom Glavine 1-3 5.45 ERA
El Duque 3-0 4.25 ERA
Pedro 2-0 3.26 ERA
John Maine 2-0 1.28 ERA
Kris Benson 0-2 4.29 ERA
Scott Kazmir 0-2 4.50 ERA
Steve Trachsel 3-1 6.39 ERA

Not many saviours in that bunch, are there?

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In a sign that mebbe neither Lastings Milledge or Michael Tucker is who we want out there starting in the outfield with Endy Chavez and Carlos Beltran in the postseason the latest rumour has the Mets trading for Shawn Green.

Not sure why though - Shawn Green fanned all three times he was up on Friday and is 5-for-29 with no extra-base hits this month. Surely Milledge or Tucker could do that. They both had an RBI last night.

Aren't you glad you don't have to pray for wildcard scenarios to get through the rest of the season?

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According to MLB.COM, in his 7 1/2 seasons with Mets, Mike Piazza appeared in 972 games, the exact equivalent of six 162-game seasons, and he grounded into 132 double plays, the second-highest figure in the National League during that time. Only Vinny Castilla (135) had more, and he had almost 500 more at-bats than Piazza.

Through Friday, when Julio Franco grounded into a double play, the Mets had grounded into 69 double plays, the fewest in the National League. Every other team had at least 78 GIDP, and the league average, excluding the Mets' total, was 94.

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