Archie Bunker's Army

It's becoming such an every day occurance you'd think it was almost fashionable for the Mets to build a lead for their starting pitcher only to see him exit and the bullpen to enter and the lead to be lost. Last night it was Brian Lawrence's turn. Not simply sufficient for the elder statesman to pitch 5 reasonably solid innings as the number 5 starter - four runs and four walks but at the plate, two hits on his own and two runs driven in. When he left the game for a pinch hitter in the 6th with a 7-4 lead. Of course to get there, they had to squander a 5 run lead for the third time in two nights. Of course, David Wright had to have an inopportune time for the yips, throwing away what should have been an inning-ending out and extending the miserable 8th inning beyond its shelf life. Once again, Willie's favourite play thing, the incomparable Guillermo Mota , was summoned from the pen to make the game exciting. Mota, in one inning nearly managed to give the lead back t...

In the first and last innings the Mets managed to score 10 runs. Between those innings virtually nothing happened between their bats and the balls thrown by Pirates pitching. And despite all that scoring it wasn't until Billy Wagner struck out Xavier Nady to finally shut the door once and for all on the evening, that the Mets could relax with another stressful victory over one of the laughingstocks of the league. (The displeasure of listening to the FSN Pittsburgh affiliates Greg Brown and Bob Walk drone on in mournful, depressing, utterly unexciting voices as though instead of a baseball game they were broadcasting a funeral - and all this despite playing in what by all sights appears to be a beautiful stadium...) Flawless but for the fatal first... You could perhaps be encouraged by John Maine's performance. After two consecutive appearances involved Maine Meltdowns one could be excused for feeling uncomfortable in the 2nd inning when he looked potentially to be in th...

How many games in a row can Jorge Sosa pitch? So far, four. And the last two have earned him victories, for himself and for the Mets. More victories in four games than he would have had in a month of starting. A total of 6 2/3 innings tossed, 8 hits and two earned runs. He's nearly obtained Aaron Heilman status when it comes to decisions by a relief pitcher. Call me crazy but is it a wise move to have your senior citizen starter like El Duque throw 130 pitches so late in the season against a team like the Pirates? Is the bullpen getting that dodgy? Something funny's going on - why else would Scott Schoeneweis be out there trying to give up the lead in the 8th inning? The rest of the pen was suffering from botulism? Or was he the only one available who could give up a long out to the warning track that Lastings Milledge could almost misjudge and then make an athletic diving catch to redeem himself? Is Willie trying hard to give us all a little excitement in our victor...

Didn't think you'd have to say this against the Marlins did you, but, good news, the Mets avoided a sweep. And making up for 2 consecutive blown saves the bullpen tossed 4 scoreless innings to hold the Marlins whilst power sources like Moises Alou (7 homers all season, 3 multi-homer games...) and Carlos Delgado (who was not robbed today for a change...) helped push the Mets up to 10 runs on the day allowing everyone to breath a sigh of relief. So for the moment everyone can put away their bulleye's and their scorecards and let those laments about the bullpen being their great undoing die mid-sentence. For a night, all is back to normal. Jose Reyes had a nice comeback on his own as well, one day after wrongly being called out at home plate he managed to kick the Marlins catcher "unintentionally" in the face, watch the ball squirt loose and avoided another fatal cock-up by the home plate umpire. All in all a redeeming day which almost made up for the long gaps ...

Oh, sure. We could go ahead and add Alfonso Marquez to the Blind Umpires of America Federation . But we already spent that loss, that pitiful John Maine meltdown in Chicago last weekend blaming an ump for the demise of the Mets and after awhile, the story just isn't going to be very credible. Yes, Marquez bleeeeeeeew a call at home, calling Jose Reyes out when he was clearly safe and cutting short a rally, stopping the Mets from taking the lead, emptying the Mets ballon of Momentum as if he'd just popped it with a pin and stuck a wad of Marlin 50 dollar bills in his back pocket. But more troubling still was the fact that for the second night in a row the bullpen failed to hold a lead, failed to secure a victory. You pick your poison: Guillermo Mota or Aaron Heilman . Willington send's Mota's lame offering to the bank Personally, I thought Mota's the more predictable and Heilman's 30 or 40 pitch screed the more antagonising. I was climbing the walls by th...

Daniel Barone, starting his first game EVER, perhaps predictably, kept the Mets silent through four innings, coming off the hangover of the lost series to the Braves and considering the Mets' historic record against first-time starters. But then in the 5th Jose Reyes reached first as a leadoff hitter via Marlin error and was followed by a perfect bunt by Luis Castillo to put two men on with none out and Carlos Beltran with a chance of redeeming all those lost games and all those poor performances whilst he probably should have been on the DL. Kaaa-Ching. Beltran belts a three-run homer and the Mets took the lead. In a way, you probably figured, game over, it's just a matter of time. And in nearly every game this season, you'd have been correct. But on the heels of that near-miss against the Braves, Billy Wagner entered the game in the top of the 9th with a one-run lead not having given up a run eight weeks. Eight weeks, boys and girls. That's either domination ...

Two out of three, lost. At home, against your arch-rivals. Here are some of the Highlights and Lowlights : GAME ONE: Braves 7 Mets 3 : Perez wasn't able to hide from the Braves for very long. 1. Odalis Perez , former conquerer of the hated Braves with three victories in three tries this season, 1.31 ERA, the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal showing against the Braves so far this year, flopped. The Braves didn't waste alot of time with their progressively larger outburst: One run in the 1st, two runs in the 2nd, three runs in the 3rd topped by the Jeff Francoeur three-run job. bye bye sweet dreams of victory, gloried domination is now history... 2. Francoeur 4 hits, Chipper Jones , 3 hits. No surprises there. By contrast, Mets bats quiet as church mice making the casually ineffective "Buddy" Carlyle seem like Vern bloody Bickford . 3. If you're going to burst a bubble better that it's burst early and quickly to give the mind more time to acquies...

It only took one extra start for Tom Glavine last night to earn his 300th career win as the Mets won another series on the road, taking their 2nd of 3 games in an 8-3 victory over the Cubs. The victory was powered by 3 hits from Jose Reyes , 4 hits from Luis Castillo , a pair of hits and 4 RBIs from Carlos Delgado who continues to look on the verge of a massive late season break out. Part This Is Your Life, eulogy and part celebration as directed by the ESPN duo of Joe Morgan and Jon Miller , Glavine's 300th was earned by five opening shut out innings, driving in the first run of the game with his own bat and watching the offense make certain the bullpen couldn't blow this one, this time. Only 58 of his 300 victories came in a Mets uniform but each season since his magical signing for the 2003 season, his victory total has grown; from 9 to 11 to 13 and 15 last season - he could well continue to surpass that mark again as he already has 10 at the beginning of August. So congr...

My name is Marty Foster and I am the bête sauvage of incompetence. If I were John Maine I would be completing Marty Foster's application for lifetime membership with the American Council of the Blind , have his union card revoked and kick him penniless and humiliated to the kerb for demonstrating such an inexorable ineptitude umping from first. Indeed, it was Foster's failure to make a simple out call at first base that precipitated the meltdown of Maine in yesterday's demoralising loss to the Cubs, led to the wildness, walk after walk after hit batsman after run-scoring hits and sent Maine to an early shower in the 3rd inning with a 6 run deficit hung around his neck. Why? Because Foster blew the call that would have ended the inning and did so just a few batters after the third base umpire almost blew a call at third base which forced David Wright to tag out a runner he'd already forced out in the first place. The only consolation a viewer might have found in the...

Hard to say who has done the Mets more good in their matchups this season with the Cubs. On the one hand, Carlos Delgado has now had three late-inning, game-changing at-bats in 5 games against the Cubs, all three of which have resulted in victories and Ryan Dempster has given up 9 earned runs in 1 1/3 innings against the Mets this season. Either way, the Mets banged out 4 runs in an explosive 9th to humiliate the Cubbies pen yet again with a 6-2 victory. From the onset, this game had all the markings of an exciting postseason game. The NL's winningest pitcher in Carlos Zambrano against El Duque , who is 3-0 with 2.48 ERA since the All Star game. Eddie Vedder singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game for the 7th inning stretch. Wrigley Field, beautiful summer afternoon and both teams in first place for the first time EVER in a game played in August or later. Other than the 9th inning, this was the highlight of the game although the wuthering arse kissing by Lem and Bob in the WGN ...

This might just be one of the more unlikely wins you're going to see from the Mets this season. With the Brewers at home, a game after the Mets had knocked them from their high perch in the NL Central down to a tie with the Cubbies, you'd have expected some sort of rip-roaring return, especially with the likes of Brian Lawrence making his return to the Major Leagues on the mound for the first time since 2005. Or maybe you'd have questioned how the Mets planned on scoring enough runs for what was certain to be a double digit output against Lawrence with Beltran on the DL, Damion Easely replacing Shawn Green in right field, and Lo Duca still recovering and out of action, playing Wally Pipp to Ramon Castro's Lou Gehrig . The 40-something doing his part to join the others on the DL... And if that didn't kill him, maybe running into Lastings Milledge would - Who is this Alou character, Wiley Coyote? Or maybe some faith that even with a few stars out this was no ra...

Well it isn't quite on par with denying Tom Glavine his 300th win but knocking the Brewers out of sole possession of first place in the NL Central for the first time since April is certainly some modicum of revenge. But aha, it isn't the Brewers we should be seeking revenge against it's the Mets own bullpen, isn't it? In any event for a few shocking moments this game seemed on the verge of being over before it started. That was the moment when you could sense Oliver Perez falling to pieces after he'd foolishly thrown away a likely inning-ending double play grounder to put two men on with one out and The Fat Prince coming to the plate. The Fat Prince jogs around the bases whilst Oliver Perez begins his nervous breakdown The Fat Prince hammered a Perez offering off the Miller Lite Live Responsibly sign so goddamned hard and far the Brewers announcers couldn't stop talking about it for an inning and a half and all of the sudden the Brewers were ahead 3-0. But ...

Well, looks like Tom Glavine's 30 family members and friends will have to go back on the road again soon. Say Good Bye To 300, Tommy Boy Rather than celebrating his 300th career victory in his first try, Glavine and friends went home disappointed as the Mets bullpen, which was not strengthened as expected before the trade deadline , blew the lead Glavine and Mets batters had left for them as the Mets lost in 13 unlucky innings to the Brewers in Milwaukee. Aaron Sele was the culprit justifiably hung with the loss but Aaron Heilman , Pedro Feliciano and of course, Guillermo Mota , could all be named and shamed for their failure to do what they're paid to do: get outs without surrendering runs. With one out in the 8th, Glavine exited. Heilman allowed a leadoff bloop single by J.J. Hardy before retiring Ryan Braun . Feliciano hit Prince Fielder , the only batter he faced but perhaps better than allowing a homerun and Mota, dear auld Mota who appears disfunctional without his l...