Cowardly Yankees Lose Again

A lasting image - and I don't mean a Mets minor league Milledge apologising for freedom of song but I do mean the image of the Yankees retreating with their tails between their legs, intentionally walking David Wright three times in a row after he'd hit homers, colossal homers in his first two at-bats.

And yeah, this game seemed like a laughter, a lark, a long-awaiting de-pantsing of the fabled Bronx franchise. It didn't feel like a Subway Series it felt like the Mets playing an exhibition against one of their minor league teams.


And when they "let" him bat...bam!

That's what happens when you jump to an 8-2 lead after four innings and your ace, Tom Glavine, earns his 295th victory without hardly breaking a sweat.

A vague Yankee comeback effort and Scott Schoeneweis conspired to keep this game from remaining a side-splitting laughathon but in the end, another pair of runs in the bottom of the 8th via a two-run pinch hit single by Julio Franco was sufficient to keep the lid on the 10-7 victory.

Meanwhile, Schoeneweis, perhaps the only unhappy Met on the roster this minute, continued his inexplicable slide - his last three appearances have been embarassments and in that span he's allowed 8 hits, 11 runs, 4 walks and 3 home runs in three innings of "work". According to the NYT, his earned run average was 1.29 when the Mets left the West Coast on May 9. Through Saturday, it stood at 6.88.

But enough of the depressing news.


Yankee Killah

Endy Chavez continued to dazzle us, this time with a four hit game that saw his batting average rise to .390 (.469 during day games). The day before it was his outfield assist and two-run homer that led the Mets to victory so we've reached the point to contemplate Chavez being an official Yankee-killah. Maybe Lastings Milledge should try to write some raps songs about it.

Hard to fathom he was in the Mets' minor league system from 1996 until we lost faith and he was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the 2000 Rule V Draft. Another coup by Omar, righting the wrongs of the past.

Then again, Chavez was hitting in the coveted number two slot in the batting order between Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran - if you wanted to take the time to go through every box score this season you'd see that Mets batters, regardless of who it is, have hit .432 from the number two slot in the batting order. (well, I didn't really go through all the box scores, I'm relying on a very dodgy memory...)

In all, yesterday's victory means the Mets win this round of the Subway Series regardless of what happens on Sunday. A sweep would be nice but the damage, quite frankly, has been done.