"Crunch Time"

Monday? More like, Tuesday. Sorry about that. Really. After peacing out for the weekend, I said I'd be back with a post yesterday and when I honestly didn't feel like writing, I started thinking of ways to explain away my laziness. I thought about dipping back into the magic bag of high school homework excuses, but hopefully a simple apology will do. I'm sorry.

But this isn't about me. This is about them Mets. And after a disappointing-yet-somewhat-encouraging series loss to the Padres, them Mets rebounded nicely in LA, winning 3 out of 4 in the same ballpark where they melted down for 3 games just over a month ago.

No meltdown this time. Great success!

Tom Glavine apparently doesn't want to move any closer to winning his 300th game just yet, as he singlehandedly made a game out of what should have been a blowout last Thursday night, blowing a 6-0 lead handed to him before the Dodgers even came to bat. Fortunately the Met offense bailed him out, winning a game in which the starting pitcher gave up more than three runs for the first time since mid-May. There's not a touch of sarcasm in my voice (fingers?) right now. It had been that long.

Thank god for the Dodgers outfield. If it weren't for some shoddy right field defense by the Dodger blue in the 9th on Sunday, the Mets would have fell to a disappointing split of this past weekend's series, (after blowing a 4-0 lead on Saturday and this time not being able to recover) and Chip Ambres never would have gotten the opportunity to cash in on his 15 seconds of fame.

How in God's name did I find a picture of Chip Ambres?

I looked at the box score from Sunday's game yesterday morning at work, and Carlos Delgado is now hitting .251. In other news, the sky fell just before I took lunch. Really, though, it feels like just yesterday that I was hoping Delgado could pull .240. I dunno, regardless of how and when he gets his hits, it just feels good for Carlos not to be hitting .230 anymore. Here's hoping he doesn't go back down. .250 I can deal with. It's alright.

Moises Alou was supposed to come back tonight. The Mets game is currently in the bottom of the 8th and he's nowhere to be found. Until I see him on the field again, I will be forced to conclude that Moises Alou is an urban legend. The guy who played a month and a half for the Mets this year was a phony.

Moises Alou is a great big phony!

I'll try to be a more responsible blogger this week. While I'm trying to pull myself together, the Mets will play National League punching bags Pittsburgh and Washington. I titled this post "crunch time" because while the Amazins aren't going into an authentic "crunch time" home stand against, say, the Braves and Phillies, they're trying to pull themselves together right now and it's important for them to keep playing well and beat up on the lesserest of the lesser.

No monkeying around. The Yankees, unnervingly, have taken advantage of playing the Devil Rays, Blue Jays, and Royals since the all-star break to cruise to 6 games over .500 for the first time this year and put the word "playoffs" back into the mouths of cockily gleeful Yankee fans.

Hopefully the Mets have been taking notes. They've have grown back about half a cajone or so since the break, and maybe they can continue to make some progress on that front over the course of the next 6 days.

We'll see how the Mets can perform in crunch time...

(Photos courtesy calpoly.edu, sportsteamlayouts.com; Video courtesy youtube.com)