takin' care of business...finally

As some readers may know, when the Mets win a game at Shea Stadium, immediately after the game ends Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business" begins to blare from the stadium speakers. I'm not sure when this started, but for the last two years "Takin' Care of Business" has become somewhat synonomous with the team's success.

These guys took care of business

That's what the Mets have done since the beginning of 2006 - business is winning and the Mets have been pretty consistent in taking care of it. It has always seemed like the perfect song for this team; Willie Randolph has always done his best to run the Mets like a trusty, reliable, well-oiled machine. A machine that you can count on day in and day out to get the job done. A machine that is there when you need it most. For all of last season and the first 50 games or so of this one, the Mets were a winning machine - takin' care of business, every day.

But then 10 losses in 11 games made the team look more like a broken Kelvinator than the winning machine that its fans (myself included) had taken pleasure in getting used to. They were doing anything but take care of business - to use a more anthropocentric analogy, the Mets looked like a strung out 40-year old sleeping on his mother's couch. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but...you get the idea.

This guy doesn't look like he's taking care of business

Wait, though...wait...waaaait...oh sweet mercy! It's Friday night, June 15th, 2007 and the Mets finally win a game, looking much more like the well-oiled machine than the strung out 40-year old. In language Willie Randolph might have used, it was a nice, tidy, 2-0 victory over the Yankees.

Roger Clemens even pitched well (6 2/3, only 2 runs). Oliver Perez just pitched better. (7 1/3, no runs; and God it feels good to say that) The Mets probably should have scored more - they did have their chances against the Rocket - but they still did all the things that have been so key to their successes over the past couple years. Getting on the board early? Check. Jose Reyes played big in this game and produced both an RBI single and a towering home run to right to get the Mets going. Good defense? Absolutely, highlighted by several nice plays by Carlos Beltran and a great third inning catch by Carlos Gomez with Jeffrey Maier's hand in his face. Good pitching? Aided by the defense, Ollie Perez shut down the Yankees and turned in another inspiring performance. After Perez's departure, Joe Smith got A-Rod to ground out with Derek Jeter on second base to end the 8th, and Billy Wagner hurled a 1-2-3 ninth. A good win for the orange and blue.

Outside of that time he let Pat Burrell hit a home run off of him, Billy Wagner's been great this year.
(Creds to krupsjustsayin.blogspot.com for the photo)

Don't think I'm counting any chickens before they hatch...Jorge Sosa shut down Detroit last week and after everyone was ready to proclaim the Mets' cold streak over, they lost 5 more games in a row. But it was really, really good that the Mets won last night. They needed that game, and hopefully now they can get out of Yankee Stadium with at least one more win and start mowing through Major League Baseball again. Takin' care of business.

METS UPDATE: The Yankees lead 7-5 right now in the bottom of the 5th inning. Tom Glavine continues to do his best to make sure that he never wins his 300th game, as he gave back a 2-0 lead in the second inning and would be much further up the creek if it weren't for early home runs by Ramon Castro and Ruben Gotay.

METS UPDATE, vol. 2: A Miguel Cairo single has put the Yankees up 8-5. Scott Shoeneweis has come on in relief of Tom Glavine, which means we might want to forget about today and hope we can come back tomorrow night and take game 3 instead. We'll see what happens.