Take The Pledge

I, as a Faith and Fear in Flushing blogger in good standing, hereby pledge to:

1) not suffer two-game losing streaks in greater proportions than I enjoy four-game winning streaks as joy should be twice as good as sorrow is bad, not the other way around.

2) not blame time zones for our problems no matter the havoc it wreaks on my biorhythms because doing so will only encourage my team to take the same tack.

3) not underrate an opponent, even in my head let alone on our blog, given that an opponent can stop being offensively tepid at just the wrong moment.

4) not overreact to any trade rumor floated between now and 4 PM Sunday — and take a deep breath after learning whatever actually happens or doesn't happen in that realm.

5) prepare reasonably acceptable alibis for breaking any and all of these pledges when emotion gets the best of me for I am not only human, I am a Mets fan.

Overheard on the red-eye from Colorado to Texas:

Are you there God? It's me, Victor. Thank you for the runs. Please don't let them trade me to Texas.

Wednesday with Extra Innings was a 15-game treat. Thanks to ESPN's national cablecast rights and the vagaries of the schedule, every pitch in the bigs was available. Dipped in and out of MLB all day and night. Was particularly taken with the ghosts who haunted my screen.

• There were Jay Payton and Marco Scutaro, not good enough to be Mets, plenty good enough to be streaking A's.

• There was Joe McEwing striking out in a critical situation for the Royals who won anyway.

• There was John Olerud being the first Red Sock to slap post-save hands with Curt Schilling, still jarring to see considering their roles on opposing sides of a wonderful walkoff six years ago.

• There was Al Leiter hanging on and Hideo Nomo fluttering across the Bottom Line as the next candidate to join him at the Last Ditch Pitching Café.

• There was David Weathers closing out the Dodgers after Jason Phillips failed to throw out Ryan Freel stealing five different times, a new Red record.

• And in the game of the night, the briefest of Met apparitions — Gary Matthews, Jr. and James Baldwin (!) — led Texas in the outlasting of Baltimore, 11-8, in eleven innings. Melvin Mora struck out on three ugly swings to defuse a rally that could have won in it for the home-O's in the ninth, but the ghosts who really scared up my attention were Javy Lopez and Sammy Sosa. Lopez was a villain of the first order in Atlanta. Now he's an A.L. East helper. I cheered his game-tying tater. As for Sosa, a periodic Mets-haunter during his Chicago epoch, he tried to score the winning run in the tenth on a single to center but was nailed rather easily at the plate by Matthews' bullet to Rod Barajas. Sosa came at the Rangers' catcher's chest protector spike-high. You hear that expression but you rarely see it. It was a little gruesome. Sammy looked more shaken than Barajas as in “what have I done?” Benches emptied and Barajas left the game. It felt like justice when Matthews hit the three-run blast to ultimately win it and Baldwin (!) came on to save it. What this may mean, if anything, to Texas in terms of its plans for Alfonso Soriano is unclear. But quite a game — and quite an invention, this digital cable.

Awesome article in SI by former Blue Jay spring training invitee Tom Verducci on the the power of Pedro. What a pitcher. What a signing. Sleep tight in Houston city. Now we've got a different Pedro watchin' over us.