God bless Johan Santana.

In the beginning he didn't look particularly on his game — the Cubs were getting pretty fair swings against him, and I was more than a little sick to my stomach thinking of finding Johan on the wrong end of a 3-1 or 4-2 score, the recipient of stoic attaboys and brave […]

I've had the good fortune to be on hand for a remarkable run of classic games at Shea Stadium — I was in green or red seats for the Grand Slam single, for the 10-run inning, for Agbayani's home run, for Bobby Jones's one-hitter, for the NLCS clincher in '00, for the first home game […]

It's that time of year when baseball moves to the head of the line, shoving aside personal commitments and anything job-related that isn't truly extraordinary. (I've got one of those next week, which is hard to do when you don't actually have a job.) Eight games to go, every one of them freighted with potentially […]

These days, it counts as a minor miracle when our bullpen only allows five baserunners in two innings, as happened tonight with Joe Smith, Scott Schoeneweis and Pedro Feliciano backing up Johan Santana, who maintained his dignity even when Kevin Burkhardt asked if he could watch once he came out of the game. (I would […]

OK, so that didn't work. Never has a 1-0 game seemed so unclose. Never has a supposedly close game's ending with the wrong result felt so unsurprising. Nationals Park was, by my thoroughly unscientific estimate, about 30% to 35% Met fans. But we were a numb, hushed bunch from pillar to post, with only a […]

Never fear, the crumple is coming to an end. Because I, Jason Fry, bearer of Faith and banisher of Fear, am on my way to Washington, D.C., to give the blue and orange troops the support and tough love they obviously need, lest the hordes of Cheesesteak City blight another October. With yours truly poised […]

… is Joshua, after having two Dashes wrecked by rain and one hijacked by ESPN, finally got to run the bases. Emily and I walked around the warning track with him, marveling at how big Shea is from a player's-eye view. Joshua chugged around the bases (My! Kid! Is! Running! The! Bases! At! Shea!) and […]

In April or May, rainouts are shrug-your-shoulders stuff, down payments on an unexpected doubleheader or on-again off-day at a point so much later in the season that the date seems like science fiction. We're gonna play Pittsburgh in … August? Wow, August. Yawn … wonder how we'll be doing then?

A September rainout, though, is […]

And to think it seemed mildly insane to have an off-day after a two-game series. After whatever the hell just happened for the last two nights, we could all use a week listening quietly to whale songs in a warm bath in a dim, candlelit room.

Worry of the moment: What if we make it […]

Maybe you've heard: We supposedly have an easy schedule the rest of the way. Four with the Cubs, yeah, but they could well have wrapped things up by then, and the rest is all the dregs of the National League East.

Well, beyond the elementary fact that we're Met fans and so never assume anything is […]