Archie Bunker's Army

After a decidedly uneventful July which the Mets carried on in typical 2005 Met fashion by neither winning too little nor losing too much in going 14-13, and after making no barrier-shattering trades despite visions of Manny Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano dancing in their heads, the Mets began August with a flurry, finally putting down the Milwaukee Brewers in the 11th inning, 9-8. What was enticing about this victory was not the way they were trailing the Brewers by four runs after a mere two innings but the way they fought back, tying the game in the 7th inning, tying the game again in the 9th inning and finally winning it in the 11th. It was the kind of victory emblematic of the heart the team has displayed time and again this season wherein just as you are about to toss the last shovel-full on their graves, they push themselves back up and surprise you. Boo! The Mets aren't dead just yet. Victor Zambrano allowed 4 homeruns to the first 8 batters he faced, a different nuance to h...

"NEW YORK -- They play 'em one at a time. They insist that's true. But no manager worth his salt, calendar or daily planner does. Even teams with no chance of a meaningful September or an active October keep one eye on tonight and the other on tomorrow." No time for a proper send off. Mets won their third in a row and A Bunker is out the door yet again. Be back in two mouth-watering weeks...

A nightful of strange occurrences. The first pinch hit homer of his career became the first walk-off homer of his career and the winning homer of the game as Chris Woodward's two run shot in the 11th gave the Mets an improbable victory over the NL West-leading San Diego Padres at Shea. And pinch me because I know this was a dream and is no semblance of reality but was that Mike Piazza throwing out the NL leading base stealer Dave Roberts at 2nd base in the 8th inning??! Let's rewind and replay. Mike Piazza throwing out not just ANY runner, but the NL leading base stealer, at second place, on less than three hops! Wow. That's a victory all in and of itself, only the 8th runner out of 66 to get caught stealing by Piazza. The victory was improbable in that it was almost the precise blueprint for the sort of games they lost during their vile and spiritless trip out West against the A's and Mariners - decent pitching, plebian hitting and one timely opponent run after ...

"That's why you guys call me the ace," Pedro philosophised following yesterday's victory that brought the Mets back to the .500 mark for the 23rd time in 92 games. "Anytime the team goes into a funk, somebody wants the ball, it's got to be me." Indeed it does. With yet another series hanging in the balance, with the Mets yet again dancing on the head of the season's pin and trying not to fall off into the abyss of non-contenderdom, once again, it was Ace Pedro to the rescue. Sunday only 6 innings were needed to establish the magic of Pedro. In that time he'd allowed only 2 hits, no walks and struck out 5 whilst the Mets built an insurmountable six run lead. Thereafter, it was up to the combination of the newly-promoted Juan Padilla, Heath Bell and KooKooKachoog to finish off the Braves who suddenly appeared less indominable. While Pedro is indeed the ace, with the way Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano have pitched of late, and to a much lesse...

Hey, whaddaya know, Tim Hudson took the mound for the first time in a month, Tim Hudson started directly off the disabled list without even a rehab start, and Tim Hudson completely shut out the Mets for six straight innings over 62 pitches, five meaningless hits, leaving his commrades from the bullpen to pick at the remainder of the Mets batting carcass for a 3-0 win last night. Hey whaddaya know, another game against the Braves, another loss for the Mets. And once again, it will all come down on Sunday, to Pedro. The Mets were shut out for the 8th time this season, a familiar refrain, 16 straight innings and counting of runless baseball for the somnambulistic batting order which could not even find inspiration in the return of Doug Mientkiewicz's two hits which raised his batting average to .224, probably because after each hit, Ramon Castro promptly ground into double plays. For the second night in a row the Mets failed to knock a runner in scoring position home which means they ...

From the onset this game had the one primary ingredient that dictated the high probabibility of a Met loss: Tom Glavine starting against his former team. Proving last night that the Opening Game's dramatic victory over the Braves was more a brief hallucination than a burgeoning new reality, the Mets, after a bad-hopping grounder bounded off Jose Reyes' bare hand, bloodied his ring finger and allowed the go-ahead run, were back on familiar grounds, losing to hated rivals, the Atlanta Braves, this time by a 2-1 margin. For a few seconds last night, as David Wright's long fly to deep right fell short of becoming his second homer of the game, we caught our collective breath in hope that the impossible could become possible for the second night in a row. Not a chance. Last night, the Mets-Braves series, so many years the pentultimate bile of frustration, returned to normal. The Braves getting the breaks, the Mets making the excuses. It wasn't even Tom Glavine's fault ...

Back in the old days, the Etruscans knew very specific means of divination. In their beliefs the signs they read were sent to them by a mythical boy called Tages, who in their mythology was to have been ploughed up from the earth. They would seek to read the future by examining the entrails of sacrificial animals, the liver being of special importance for that purpose. They would observe lighting and interpret its meanings. And they would try and put meaning to any unusual phenomena which occured. Fortunately, Archie Bunker's Army only has to observe last night's results to recognise that the second half of the season has started better than the first half did and allow all good omens of second half fortune to prevail. After a disappointing first half of what will likely be his last season as a Met, Mike Piazza started the second half off with a majestic three-run, game-winning homerun in the 8th inning at Shea to lead the Mets to a 6-3 victory over the hated Braves. "Thi...

It would be nice to be proud that despite a mediocre record hovering constantly near the break even point the Mets were able to get three players named to the All Star team. It would be nice to believe we deserved to have all three players named. But let's face it. Rather than merit, we must instead thank that oft-perplexing phenomenon called fan voting, which has always been a puzzling mixture of hometown stupidity and misguided sentimentality. Case in point: the National League's starting catcher, Mike Piazza. You have to think this is owed to either a severe case of ballot box stuffing by overzealous Met fans or a national compendium of sentimentalists and hangers-on intent on giving credence to a player's past rather than his present. What other rationale could be given for making the laughingstock of the spaghetti-armed catcher's brigade the starting backstop for this year's National League team? At least last season's selection, despite Piazza's mis...

Quite appropriately, 88 games later and at the All Star break in the action the Mets are pretty much exactly how they started the season: reliant on Pedro to keep them afloat. At 44-44 the Mets have proven themselves to be masters of the middle road, neither good nor bad, terrible of terrific. Just a mediocre team with an extraordinary ace. Not only does Pedro make the team better, in particular, he makes the Mets lone young superstar better as well. Carlos Beltran is hitting just .250 (63-for-252) in games Martinez has not started. However, he is batting .328 (21-for-64) in games started by the Mets' ace. Nine out of his 10 home runs have been hit when Martinez was pitching. Yesterday, having already blown the first two games of the series to the less-than-stellar Pirates, Pedro led the Mets back onto the road to redemption, throwing seven innings of five-hit, one-run pitching and winning his 10th game of the season with a 2.72 ERA to lead the Mets to a 6-1 victory. Unlike Frida...

You might have thought Friday night's debacle was one of the low points of the season and you might have been right. It ranked right up there with the blown Opening Day game against the Reds. But last night seemed to confirm the bullpen is hunched over the toilet, spilling its collective guts. Whereas the meltdown on Friday night involved a four run lead, Aaron Heilman and closer Bradon Looper, Saturday involved a very ugly 7th inning which blew the game wide open as Heath Bell and Danny Graves combined to allow 7 runs to the Pittsburgh Pirates and blew their second consecutive game in a row, this time by an 11-4 margin. Friday the heartbreaker, Saturday the haymaker. The bullpen that had gone 12 innings without surrendering a run and allowing only one hit all series against the Washington Nationals proceeded to give up 11 runs in what amounted to three innings of disaster against the Pittsburgh Pirates, hardly a team you would expect a collapse against. Does it mean the bullpen ...

Victor Zambrano did his job. He held the Pirates to five hits and a lone run over 8 innings and left the game with a 5-1 lead and a reasonable expectation of earning his 5th win of the season. Instead, Aaron Heilman entered the game in the 9th and loaded the bases en route to getting the first two outs of the inning. Heilman was replaced by closer Bradon Looper and instead of getting the last out of the game, following a mind-boggling 11 straight fastballs, surrendered a two-strike, two-run single to Tike Redman to make it 5-3. Still needing only one little out to give the Mets another win, Matt Lawton's fly ball to Cliff Floyd, which should have ended the game, was hideously misplayed, costing an additional two runs and tying the game. And just like that, the game that was one strike from being in hand was going into extra innings. "We just gave it away," Mets manager Willie Randolph explained to reporters after the game, working on his skills at pointing out the obv...

There are so many savoury little tidbits to nibble over following last night's incogitable 11 inning, 3-2 victory over the NL East-leading Washington Nationals that you almost forget to chew. Coming into this dramatic four game series the Nats had won six in row, had an NL-best 29-10 record at home, including 15 of their last 16 at home, and held a 10 game sway over the Mets in the NL East. The Mets were facing the very real prospect of yet another series loss, one which would kick them end over end, further down the stairs of the NL East cellar, into a darkness which might have well lasted the remainder of the season. But not these Mets. For every moment of proliferate frustration this season has brought us there has always seemed to be that one game that puts a temporal end to the suffering and gives us mild hallucinations of what might have been or might still be. Time and again when the Mets have lain bloodied and bruised they have slowly gotten up, dusted themselves off and...

Perhaps righteous punishment for their decision to allow Qrio the humanoid robot throw out the ceremonial first pitch, the NL East-leading Nats were beaten 5-3 by the NL East bottom-dwelling Mets last night, despite baserunning and fielding gaffes-a-go-go by the Mets that should have handed the game to the Nats under normal circumstances. Instead, the loss meant that for the first time since April 25-27, the Nats will not win a home series. The loss was also the normally indominable Liván Hernández's first loss since April 19th. Boo-hoo. After slamming QuesTec the computer ump and saying it was ruining baseball, you have to wonder what Tom Glavine was thinking watching a robotic humanoid throwing out the first pitch. "It was the kind of game that you know wasn't easy," Glavine noted, refusing to comment on Qrio, perhaps out of fear of retribution or being traded to some robotic baseball league before the trade deadline. "You're trying to battle, make pit...

It isn't often you can say that Pedro was out-pitched by his opponent. Then again, the way these Mets hit, any opposing pitcher is a potential no-hitter spinner and any opposing pitcher is a potential Pedro. Last night, over the course of seven innings, Pedro allowed eight hits, walked one, hit one batter and struck out six which was hardly a Pedroesque performance in itself but for most teams, most nights, should have been sufficient to earn a victory. Last night for 8 long and excruciating innings, Esteban Loaiza held the Mets scoreless and allowed them a mere 5 hits. Granted, you could note that these days, the Mets batting order is hardly formidable, as yet another night of more strikeouts than hits would attest to, but even after waking up in the 9th inning to produce a two run rally, the Mets still fell short and dropped a crucial game against the Nats 3-2. It was Pedro's third loss of the season and the 7th time the Mets have lost a game in which Pedro started. In five...

Archie Bunker's Army returned from the Scottish Highlands just in time to hear the final three innings of an exciting 4th of July Met comeback over the Washington Nationals last night, 5-2. We didn't miss much in the interim: 2 out of 3 against the Phils, 1 out of 3 against the Marlins, a perfectly Met-like 3-3 whilst we were away. Last night the Mets were able to make an unlikely comeback against a team in the Nats that has been on a wild run over the last month, has won 6 straight and have been on the verge of cracking open the NL East like a free range egg and frying their league rivals. The Mets had already fallen opening a huge lead in the NL East in the late innings who has a habit of winning in the late innings. The Nats had been on a 6 game winning streak, had been 29-10 at home and 22-7 in one-run games whilst the Mets had fallen 10 full games behind them as they neared the All Star break so this series and indeed, this victory, come at a very opportune moment. How...

Disappointing, yes. But two out of three from the Yankees in the Bronx, for the first time EVER, is something to be proud of, even if the bullpen completely negated a proud effort highlighting almost as much by Yankee miscues as Met surprises. Archie Bunker's Army is off for the next week hiking in Ben Nevis and thereabouts: In the interim, I fully expect the Mets to be battling for first place by the time I return. Haha. Let's Go Mets!

Both teams have identical 37-37 numbers after Cliff Floyd pounded two homers and the Mets clinched their first-ever winning series at Yankee Stadium with a massive 10-3 outburst. The case is being made for the Mets being the best baseball team in New York today.

Behind the pitching of Pedro Martinez, the homeruns of Cliff Floyd and Carlos Beltran, four sacrifice flies and the amazing grab by Beltran (above), the Mets took the opener of the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium, 6-4.

The stage was all set for a Met Meltdown. Having led the entire game, the 7th inning was proving more than formidable for the Mets. Kaz Ishii had withered after 6 2/3 innings of decent pitching, two outs more than his usual effort and after Todd Pratt had belted one to make it 4-2, with Rollins on first and Jason Michaels coming to the plate, Manager Willie knew the Invinshible Ishii was hanging by a thread. So in came Heath Bell who immediately conspired with Mike Piazza to allow Rollins to steal second and then gave up a run-scoring single to Michaels to make it 4-3. Out came Bell and in came Royce Ring to face Bobby Abreu. After a long at-bat, Abreu walked to put the winning run on first base so out came Ring and in came Roberto Hernandez with the game riding on his shoulders. Only the night before the bullpen was the scourge of the Mets, costing them a possible victory and tonight, after smooth sailing for almost seven innings, here we were again, out of paradise and into the bo...

Well, you don't have to pinch me, I'm not dreaming any more. One game after their high colonic output with 14 hits and eight runs had them fooled into believing they'd regained their touch at the plate, Mets bats were back on the rack gathering dust as they were dazzled and thwarted by yet another pitcher without a pedigree, this time in the form of Robinson Tejeda, who began the season at AAA and was starting only his third game of the season and was 8-14 with a 5.15 ERA at Double-A Reading last season. Tejada allowed only three Met hits and a lone run via Cliff Floyd's homer, in six innings of work. Tejada you will recall, if you recall anything at all about him, is not officially listed as one of the many "aces" that populate the starting rotations of our NL East opponents. But perhaps Tejeda's domination was no fluke. Since being called from the bullpen (Heilman anyone) into the starting rotation he has thrown 16 2/3 innings and the Mets are the onl...