Statement Game?

The Mets responded convincingly to clubhouse-gate yesterday afternoon, beating the Yankees 7-4 in the kind of crisp, well-played game we've gotten used to seeing about every other day or so. I mean, seriously. The Mets have now won 21 games. After at least 15 of those games there have been encouraging signs that the Mets are finally prepared to break out of this up-down nonsense.

Johan Santana was also pitching. The Mets have now won seven of Santana's nine starts. That's good: you have to win when your ace pitches. Unfortunately, the fact that that the Mets are 7-2 in Santana starts means they're just 14-17 when Johan's not on the mound. The Mets .500 hovering act is only thrown further into relief by the fact that they can only ever seem to look more-than-mediocre when their best pitcher goes.

Still, yesterday's win did have the air of a statement game. Billy Wagner's "f---ing shocker" comments after Thursday's game created the first real controversy surrounding the 2008 Mets. For all the listless play, part of why the Mets have been painful to watch is because it's all been kind of boring. Win, loss, loss, win; they can't seem to get anything going but the overall narrative hasn't changed much.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe these Mets needed some real trouble. Because Rocky taught us that its not how hard you hit, but how hard you get hit, and keep moving forward. I've been saying that the Mets need something to happen, something to rally around, and while I'm still not sure if the firing of Willie Randolph will be necessary to achieve this, "f---ing shocker" at least carries with it the potential to wake this team up.

And they did respond in kind yesterday. Along with Santana, who despite giving up three home runs pitched into the 8th inning and handed the ball directly to Billy Wagner, which is always a formula for success. Jose Reyes (2-5, HR) and David Wright (3-5, HR) carried the offense, and the third inning Church to Castillo to Schneider-with-the-foot-block relay was a huge play, after the Yankees had already taken a 2-0 lead and the game showed potentially dangerous signs of getting out of hand really fast. Carlos Delgado even turned on a Joba Chamberlain fastball for a key RBI in the 8th inning.

So, once again, we have some encouraging signs. But the trouble with trying to analyze these Mets is that you just don't know what anything is going to lead to. Was yesterday a turning point? That will depend on what the Mets can do against Chien-Ming Wang tonight, and how Oliver Perez does or does not step up in what I hope the Mets consider to be another very important game.

(Image courtesy cinematicwallpaper.com)