So Jack McKeon played the game under protest because the lighting changed when Carlos Delgado walked to the plate against the mighty Tim Hamulack. Awww. I rooted the game under protest when Willie let Braden Looper out of the bullpen. I withdrew my protest a bit later; Jack may as well do the same.
The award for Gallant But Doomed Gesture goes to for Ted Robinson for trying to plead Looper's case before an incensed fan base. Paraphrasing: “I don't like to tell the fans what to do, but that was a groundball to the opposite field that found a hole. OK, he did walk Lo Duca, but that was a groundball. …And Looper hangs a pitch to Lenny Harris, and the Marlins have tied it. [BOOOOOOO!] And that one's harder to dismiss.” Uh-huh, Ted. Tell us which part of the inning we weren't supposed to boo again?
As for Shingo, well, either he's tipping that fastball or hitters have got used to it or it's not enough of a weapon to make the rest of the arsenal work. The experiment isn't yet into Danny Graves territory, which is to say the baseball equivalent of persisting in cold-fusion research — but the data aren't exactly promising. After watching Shingo's fastball get pounded all over September, perhaps this white boy can get away with pointing out that funk doesn't work without a backbeat.
But all this agita was the appetizer to an unexpected delicacy: The unlikely reappearance of Miguel Cairo. For one night (or at least for two plays on one night) Cairo was everything we'd hoped to have this year. There he was in the ninth, first and third with one out and Juan Encarnacion looking to return to his usual program of stabbing us through the heart, and Cairo played his grounder perfectly, running across the diamond to cut off Jeff Conine's route to the plate, driving him back toward third to be tagged out. No wasted throws, no Delgado replacing Conine at third, just an absolute textbook rundown. And then of course he finished the Marlins by driving in Reyes from second. One night doesn't redeem a terrible season — that was Cairo's 16th RBI — but we'll take it.
A less-partisan blog might consider it more accurate to say that the last two nights haven't been Met wins so much as Marlin gag jobs. We've heard of those less-partisan blogs — you want Fair and Finicky in Flushing down the hall. Round these parts, we're whispering “walkoff, walkoff” again as we fall asleep with another smile on our faces.
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