If you're producing a sportscast tonight and you have one highlight to show from this afternoon's Mets-Cubs game, that's easy. You pick Jose Valentin singling up the middle with the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of the tenth and then receiving highly affectionate super atomic noogies from his teammates for his walkoff [...]

I sat here Saturday night and declared we had all the starting pitching we could possibly use right inside our three blue walls.

Since then, we've given up eight runs a game.

I opined last night that Paul Lo Duca, not Mike Piazza, is the best possible catcher we could have right now.

Then tonight's game ends with [...]

Before we move on to tonight's game, a quick acknowledgment that last night saw the unveiling of another significant work by The Artist Currently Known as Keith Hernandez. Xavier Nady ended the sixth when Jacque Jones made a very nice running catch that left him nearly flipping over the padded wall beyond the right-field foul [...]

Well-said, blog brother. (If you just got here and want to know what I'm going on about, skip down a bit.)

I'll go a step further and say that while I'll always have an extra-large spot in my heart reserved for Mike Piazza, this team is better off with Paul Lo Duca. And it's not just [...]

The other night, watching Mets Weekly, I saw a clip of Butch Huskey making the turn and heading for home against the Reds. The clock read 6:36, meaning he had homered in the first game of a twinight doubleheader. Searching my mental archive (and later confirming it via Retrosheet), I knew it had to have [...]

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If simulation equals stimulation, consider me titillated.

Pedro Martinez, who threw 80 pitches to bat boys who stood statue-still after Saturday's game, pronounced himself as havin' it goin' on, and Willie Randolph seconded that assessment. Facing kids with VICTOR 06 on their backs may not be the same as mixing in offspeed stuff to Marcus Giles, [...]

Way to complicate things, El Duque.

Of course this is good complicated — better complicated would be Mike Pelfrey following El Duque's fine effort with one of his own, leaving us with three viable candidates for two spots. (And Brian Bannister not far away.) And with Pedro having pronounced himself good to go, what next? If [...]

When the rains finally stopped, the reign began: John Maine was terrific tonight, though it took a great catch by Cliff Floyd (who should be sick more often, apparently) and a nifty block of home by Paul Lo Duca to elevate him to terrific from just very good. Rookie pitchers, particularly ones being rebuilt after [...]