First In NL To 30

The bitter taste of Brave in the mouth didn't have to last too long.

After losing yet another series to Atlanta, the Mets waited until the 9th to burst out with 5 runs to give yet another undeserved win to Aaron Heilman.

I say undeserved because in theory anyway, it never would have been his to earn had he not given up the tying run in 8th...

Technically, Joe Smith should have profited from his scoreless and hitless inning of work in the 7th and even moreso, El Duque, for his outstanding return from the DL which saw 6 scoreless innings of bedazzlement and joy on Cuban Night in Miami.


El Duque Coming out of his DL shell...

So when Heilman allowed a one-out triple to the weak-hitting Miquel Olivo, then hit Aaron Boone and walked .197 hitter Todd Linden to load the bases in the bottom of the 8th, well perhaps he was simply positioning himself for a win that would place him level with starter Tom Glavine with 5 wins, one less than team leader Oliver Perez.

Did Heilman purposely allow the tying run to give himself starter-like win totals?

"Champagne ... shampoo," Aaron Heilman once said. "They sound the same."

You see he's only pitched about 21 innings for his 5 wins. Glavine has had to pitch more than three times that number of innings to earn his 5. Those who argue Heilman is just taking advantage of his reliever role would point out he has appeared in 22 games whereas Glavine has been in "only" 11.


Only 10 starters in the NL have more wins than Heilman the "reliever" this season...

However way you work it out, intentionally or not, once the Mets roared back with 5 runs in the top of the 9th to make it 6-1, not even Miguel Cabrera's homer off of Billy Wagner in the bottom of the 9th could prevent the Mets from winning their 30th game of the season, the most in the National League.

Perhaps funnier still, testing the limits of the We Can Lose 2 Out of 3 Every Series To The Braves And Still Be World Champions theory, they stretched their NL East lead to 2 1/2 games when the Braves were defeated by NL East laughingstocks, the Phillies.

You see, the Phillies aren't afraid of beating the Braves like the Mets are and look where it gets them: The Phillies are still 6 1/2 games behind the Mets...