If the Mets have led you to claw fingernail marks in your own palms this year — stigmata I think we all bear — then this was baseball as sweetest absolution. Stagnation, frustration, expectation, exultation and exhalation were the night's procession, as some bullpen tightrope-walking was followed by a barn-burner of an 8th inning and […]

Now that's what a ninth inning ought to look like: Five pitches, no fuss, put it in the books.

Now this is the kind of pitching line you dream of: 9 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 0 BB. 113 pitches, 85 of them for strikes.

Johan Santana is 11-7 in mid-August, but just look at this game […]

Facing the same team on consecutive starts isn't ideal for pitchers. Facing the exact same matchup that yielded a cringeworthy disaster five days before isn't ideal for fans.

Yet this time around, Pedro Martinez vs. Zach Duke turned out just fine. Pedro might not have had as good stuff as he did on Monday, but he […]

Wham! Biff! Pow! Sock!

The Mets were finally doing what they're supposed to do to teams like the Nats, the torrential rains that threatened to engulf New York had spared D.C., and Oliver Perez was looking unbeatable, benefiting from absurd movement on his pitches, overaggressive Nats hitters and a generous strike zone. I extracted some bitter […]

Faith and Fear does occasionally have some business to attend to, so periodically your bloggers get together to exchange blog-related news and ideas. (“Faith and Fear: The Interpretive Dance” will blow you away with both its kinetic nuance and its rococo wardrobe.) But tonight we were wary that the Olympics would squeeze the Mets off […]

So. Whew.

I know we're all in this together, but forgive me: I needed that one. Me. Jason Fry.

Because yesterday sucked.

The silver lining of Day 1 of unemployment turning into a Shea Stadium matinee turned out to be a downed power line. And it had been a lovely day — the game got off late and […]

Yesterday may have been the dreariest baseball game I've ever attended.

Emily and I were coming back from Philadelphia in a rental car, and with insufficient time to go home and get on the subway, we were stuck driving. We'd been warned about this, but it's true — it's hard parking at Shea when there's a […]

It's probably harsh and unfeeling to suggest that for the rest of the year, Johan Santana be given carte blanche to pistol-whip any Met reliever whenever he wishes. (“Coach! Schoeneweis fell down the stairs again! Yeah, just like Heilman!”) But maybe he should at least be allowed to give them a vigorous shaking. What is […]

Maybe it was just the chance to really watch a game after days of personal distractions, but somehow I wasn't that bothered by tonight's loss. Perturbed, sure. But undone? Nope.

I like the Mets' new kiddie corps. I like Daniel Murphy's ability to pull a ball when needed, the way he makes adjustments at the plate […]