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 then a relatively sweat-free 9th. This is the way —

Hey, have you been to my Web site lately?

Wait a minute, I think the shortstop of a third-place team wants to sell us an SUV! What was that, Mr. Jeter? No, I haven't taken your Ford challenge, whatever that is. Look, I don't mean to be rude, but you're interrupting. Could you come back at the end?

The day didn't begin auspiciously, not with the news that Billy Wagner has increased swelling in his pitching elbow, leaving our closing arguments to the tender mercies of Heilman Sanchez Feliciano Smith Schoeneweis Stokes and Ayala LLP, a bunch of Lionel Hutzes of late when it comes to laying down bullpen law. Nor did things look good when the Mets grabbed a 2-0 lead only to do their usual hare-and-the-tortoise imitation, falling into a doze against Jo-Jo Reyes and allowing Chipper and this year's squad of Bravos Anonymous to perform recon and ambush Oliver Perez. (Ollie was due for a tepid performance, so gets only a mild scolding — but it was scary to rediscover how naturally eye-rolling, muttering and hair-pulling accompany a Perez start.)

But things started to turn with Ayala's Shea debut. The newest Met was handed a tough —

Have you been to my Web site lately?

For Pete's sake! Yes, I've heard of the Ford Edge. I'm aware that you have one, Derek, or at least that your TV pitchman self does. We're discussing a pennant race here, so do me a favor and get back in your vehicle. Now look at your side mirror. Does it say BLUE JAYS IN MIRROR MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR? It does? Then why don't you worry about that challenge and leave us in peace?

Ayala was handed a tough assignment: first and third and one out with the Braves up 3-2. It was reassuring to see Dan Warthen out at the mound after he retired Omar Infante, I assume to tell Ayala not to be macho for his new teammates and to pitch around Brian McCann in favor of Jeff Francoeur if he'd rather. That was good — but it was better to see Ayala coolly erase McCann and the threat. As for Heilman, he's probably always going to look like a kicked hound out there on the mound, and we're just going to have to get as used to it as we can. But just when it looked like the roof was going to cave in, he got Gregor Blanco to foul out to Wright and give us a chance at a second inning against Jeff Bennett and the Costco-sized bag of sunflower seeds he carries in his cheek.

As for Nick Evans, he probably isn't ready….

Have you been to my —

I know, I know, you've definitely got an edge. Everybody says so — taxi drivers, sassy meter maids, construction workers, vague baseball types wearing blank hats. And yes, I get that you've got an Edge, not an edge, and I can get one too. Sometime between the first viewing and the millionth, that little narrative twist lost its effectiveness. Enough!

Nick Evans needs more seasoning, but it's impressive how well he works counts — even when the home-plate ump is calling the black and then some, as Charlie Reliford was in the 8th. Evans walked, Wright walked as Bennett buried slider after slider in the dirt, Beltran dribbled a little excuse-me single up the line and it was Carlos Delgado up with the bases loaded and one out. Bases loaded, as we all know, has not been kind to us this summer. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I believe the Mets were 3 for 43,412 in that situation, and 1 for their last 37,297. Not good odds —

Have you been —

All right, now I'm getting pissed. Look, Jetes. No one thinks you have any relevance to Met baseball except hacky columnists and ad-sales drones. So why don't you just take it somewhere else?

Not good odds, but there you had it: Carlos Delgado against Will Ohman, one pretty important late-summer game in the balance, the victorious Phillies no doubt gathered in their clubhouse to watch. Delgado got decent wood on a foul down the left-field line, which of course means absolutely nothing, and here came the second pitch from Ohman and OH MAN! OFF THE WALL! EAT IT, BOBBY COX! CHANGE THE CHANNEL, PAT THE BAT! WOOO!

Actually I was terrified. The ball took a crazy, Augustinian bounce right off the pad to Blanco, who came flying out of nowhere to snare it with his bare hand and fire home, assailing me with visions of Endy Chavez becoming Richie Zisk. All would come to nothing, and this awful game would rise to the surface of Gary Cohen's play-by-play and this blog's postgame lamentations on many dark days in the future, leaving us to brood over the play that had short-circuited a pennant drive.

But no — Blanco had done everything he could, but he was a long way from home and Endy was starting from third, not first. He was safe, David Wright had come home right behind him, and Delgado was standing on second at the center of the happy Shea Stadium roars. And then the worm finally turned for Damion Easley and it was 6-3, and then the Round Mound of Pound smacked one down the left-field line and it was 7-3, and not even a superhuman play by Yunel Escobar could undo this one.

Have you —

SHUT UP! I DON'T CARE! JUST GO THE FUCK AWAY!

I don't know who the hell's going to close. I don't know if our assemblage of random corner outfielders can keep doing it with mirrors. I don't know if we can hold off the Phillies. But games like this make you believe that maybe, just maybe, things might turn out all right. That maybe, just maybe, this team has come through doubt and dismay with both renewed confidence and a certain killer instinct. Or, if you prefer, that they've now definitely got an edge. Baby.

Turns out somebody who'll be working at Shea tonight has a healthy respect for the place. Too bad it's Chipper Jones.

Ray Glier has a terrific article in the Times this morning catching up with our old pal Larry Wayne. As you know, Mr. Jones and we have an enduring and somewhat sordid history together. Chipper sheds some light on the root cause of an unfriendliness that transcends boxscores.

You might remember the tipping point for why Larry became the most public of Shea enemies. It was at the end of a searing series between us and the Braves, a bitter eleven-inning loss that appeared to have knocked us out of the playoff picture for 1999. At the finale's conclusion, legend has it, Jones was being harassed by a field box fan that come World Series time, New York's other team was going to do in Atlanta and how. Chipper's infamous response was, “Now all the Mets can go home and put their Yankees stuff on.”

The nerve! We already didn't like him for his Braveness and his success. But that tore it. John Rocker would be a passing fancy. Hating Chipper Jones would be forever.

But The Chip adds a wrinkle I either missed or he's making up. I can't quite believe I would have missed it because I was pretty well on top of that 1999 limp to glory, but maybe I did. Or maybe Chipper's burnishing the legend to make himself a little less loathsome in a deathbed bid to get Shea on his side before there's no more Shea to take sides. Jones tells Glier that the field box fan who heckled him was wearing “a split jersey, half Yankees, half Mets, and a split hat, half Yankees, half Mets”.

He was? There are such garments? In New York? People wear them? And they are allowed into Shea Stadium?

That in itself is more detestable than anything Chipper has said or done at Shea, and he's committed plenty of war crimes against Met pitching since 1995. One cringes to imagine that such a prime spectating spot would be taken up by a human being dismal enough to sport a New York-New York jersey divided against itself.

Even still.

Let's assume Chipper's baseball hermaphrodite existed. Let's assume this Big Foot of the box seats really roamed the orange aisles of Shea and there truly was such a creature who uttered those ugly sentiments of surrender to Mr. Jones while we were only two out of the Wild Card with three to play. Even with the heat of battle still rising from his neck, what the fudge was Chipper thinking to lump all New Yorkers together like that? He'd been around long enough to know Mets fans were Mets fans and the other thing was the other thing. He'd been in a World Series over there and had just played for his life over here. Come on!

Today's Larry Jones is contrite, almost, sort of, just a little. “I was like, ‘Come on bro, pick a side,'” he explains to Glier in 2008. “I was a punk kid, I didn’t know better. That’s when I said it.”

Well sir, we are a sensitive people and we took it to heart. In 1999, it was no simple task to be a Mets fan in New York. Thus, if you wanted to fire up the base, you did it. We didn't like lots of Braves then or in the years that followed, but we really hated you. You killed us with your bat, but it was your mouth that made you transcendent. Why do you think nobody ever got worked up when Brian Jordan showed his face — and that guy destroyed our postseason dreams in September 2001.

But y'know what? There's something about Larry. Maybe it's just his longevity; or it's the sentimentality whirling in the air with only 22 home games left; or it's that Chipper Jones really does seem to have a thing for the ballpark for which his son is named beyond his lifetime .310 batting average there. Jones, now able to tell New Yorkers apart (at least by cap design), swears he received good wishes during the All-Star Break from all stripe of Gothamite on his abbreviated quest for .400. The feeling, after fourteen seasons, is suddenly mutual.

Sure, he tells Glier, he likes Shea Stadium because he sees the ball and hits the ball so well, but “having to deal with the Mets year in and year out, all those games that were so important, the history of the love-hate relationship, the passion of their fans, it makes it special to go there.”

Obviously nobody is left on the Mets from those Mets who battled those Braves so fiercely when we were learning Chipper's real first name. Nobody's left, that is, but us, his Greek chorus. The only '99 Braves who remain in that uniform this week (accounting for injuries to Smoltz and whathisname) are Bobby Cox and Chipper Jones. Cox is simply a bore. Jones…I dunno. There comes a time when you almost, sort of, just a little begin to feel something that isn't total, complete and burning animus for a player you've always loved to hate.

I won't feel this way for Pat Burrell when he grows grizzled, believe you me. I'd tell you what I dream of for Yadier Molina down the road except it would incriminate me in a court of law. But Chipper Jones, father of Shea Jones, constant tourist aware enough of his surroundings at his surroundings' end to admit that he wants a piece of his veritable home away from home, that he and his kid will be taking pictures together on his final trip in next month? Him I can respect.

While booing the crap out of him tonight per usual.

Avoid Monday afternoons with or in Pittsburgh and the record shows we'll never lose another game — at least not another irritating game larded with baserunners stranded and bullpen imploded.

Oh right, can't win 'em all. Sorry. I'd gotten used to the contrary over the preceding six days.

If I can gloss over the tired bat (Delgado's) and alarming arm (Sanchez's) that did us in in the eighth, it was a very good trip. Of course it's supposed to be fun in the sun when your itinerary includes the Nationals and the Pirates and nobody else. To our way of thinking as fans of a contending entity, we have no business losing to lousy teams, and bend over backwards as I might so as not to stir the sensitive gods of competitive fires, the Nationals and Pirates are plainly undistinguished.

May the Nats redistinguish themselves this week against the Phillies. And may the Braves, whose record is the same as the Bucs', forget they were ever our archrivals. It's tough to make reads from the schedule, but we and Philly have almost the same slate the rest of the way. We each have to deal with the Brewers (them four home, us three away); we each have to brace for the Cubs (them four at Wrigley, us four at Shea); they host four with the Dodgers who just swept them as we welcome the Astros — who just swept us — for four. The rest is divisional opponents and each other. The Marlins are still around, but one overriding concern at a time.

Last September we had, on paper, a favorable stretch drive. The last two weeks loomed as the lousy Nationals, the lousy Marlins, the lousy Nationals, a makeup against the lousy Cardinals, the lousy Marlins. We know how that worked out. I wouldn't make any automatically optimistic presumptions regarding the six we have left with Washington or — can't believe I'm saying this — the nine we have left with Atlanta. That said, you want to believe those are eminently winnable games. The other 22 remaining contests are against teams with winning records, 18 against clubs in certain contention as we speak. But ya gotta play with the big boys now if ya wanna play with the big boys later. It occurs to me this season's hopefulness has been built on the carcasses of the National League dregs, namely the six before the break against the horrible Giants and Rockies and the six before today against the pathetic Nationals and Pirates. Subtract that 12-0 from the overall ledger and the Mets are 56-57.

But why would you subtract them? You play who you play and you beat who you beat and you hope you don't lose too many otherwise. If you're going to cherrypick results, you can't overlook nine of thirteen won versus Philly…nor can you get out of your craw the four-game sweep in San Diego, to say nothing of that stunningly awful afternoon against Arizona in mid-June — nor the sorry results of this Monday and last.

This is all one long stream of schedule consciousness that leads to a river of uncertainty as regards what happens next. I kind of wish I knew. I'm kind of glad I don't. The season contains not quite six more weeks. We are leasing a lead of 1½ over Philly, 4 over the Marlins. I'll take knowing that much.

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 log.

In the 15 games in which Santana didn't get a win, he's given up this many earned runs: 1, 4, 2, 1, 3, 1, 0, 4, 1, 3, 2, 5, 2, 1, 2. In 10 of those games he clearly did everything one could have asked of him — with better offensive support and bullpen work behind him, he could be knocking on the door of 20 wins.

Santana's had exactly two starts that would qualify as lousy all year: He gave up 4 ER in six innings against the Angels back in June and 5 earned against the Reds last month. When your bad starts can be referred to by the month in which they occurred, with no possibility of confusion, I'd say you're doing OK.

Or consider this: Santana went winless from June 6 to July 4. During that stretch, he lowered his ERA from an already-solid 3.20 to 2.96.

There was an odd feeling of dissatisfaction with Santana early on, as if we expected him to not only pitch superb baseball but also to discover cold fusion and clean up the Middle East. (If I can be a horrible fan for a moment, I do still wonder why he's been more Al Leiter than Mike Hampton with a bat in his hands.) The man's highest ERA following any game this season has been 3.41. Big second-half pitcher? He's been a big pitcher in whatever half you'd like to choose.

No prospects-for-a-veteran trade can be fairly assessed just one season in, but Carlos Gomez is hitting .250 and has brought little beyond speed to the Twins. Kevin Mulvey has been OK for Rochester, but Philip Humber has an ERA over 5 and Deolis Guerra is scuffling with a similar ERA for Fort Myers. Santana, meanwhile, has had to learn a new league, find a place in a new clubhouse, deal with a ferocious media, forge a relationship with two managers and two pitching coaches, and not yield to the temptation of strangling a parade of incompetent relievers.

All things considered, I'd say he's done just fine.

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 had a little more stamina and a lot better run support. And turned in a game that struck me as far more significant than you'd expect from a mid-August tilt with a second-division club.

Every athlete must eventually battle age, but Pedro's unearthly competitiveness and pitching smarts always suggested he'd have an advantage in that melancholy competition; the sad part is the idea has only rarely been tested, with all manner of injuries interfering. From the neck up Pedro's perfect, but it seems like everything below there has been balky and fragile. Last night, happily, the body supported the brain just fine: Pedro's flamethrower fastball is gone, never to return, but he used his changeup to deadly effect, supplementing it with a modest fastball made more effective by the addition of a few MPH here and the subtraction of a few there.

The sadness of Athlete vs. Age is that ultimately age will win — and often in a rout. Tom Seaver wound up a crafty journeyman in Boston colors. A bad back turned Keith Hernandez's Cleveland tour of duty into a farce and forced him from the game. Before we can believe it, David Wright will be a graying first baseman with a slider-speed bat. Jose Reyes will be known for his excellent baserunning and his good arm at short, but no longer for his explosive speed or the joyousness of youth. And then even those qualities will be beyond them, and they'll be gone.

Fairly soon, Pedro will precede Wright and Reyes down the road taken by Tom Terrific and Keith. But he's still got some time left — and with a little luck, he'll have more games like last night's, with brain and body in sync. Games for him and us to appreciate.

Y'know when I was reminded how much I love Pedro Martinez? Not Saturday night when he calmly put away the Pittsburgh Pirates for seven innings. It was last Monday afternoon when his surefire win was pissed away by his bullpen, none of whose members will be joining Pedro in Cooperstown for more than a few minutes spent staring at his plaque.

I hated our bullpen. You hated our bullpen. But Pedro, he whose line sagged most at the hands of the Flushing Arson Squad, was magnanimous in team defeat.

“With me,” he was quoted after that calamity, “it's OK. Everybody out there was trying, was trying to reel in and win.” Pedro even gave the Pirates credit that day: “They never quit; you have to give them credit.”

It pained me to admit it but yes, the five relief pitchers who allowed the Pirates six runs in three game-killing innings weren't working for Bucs Inc. They were trying. I have a tough time remembering no Met sucks on purpose or with intent even though it often seems that way.

Johan Santana has practically broken his face trying not to act grumpy when one of his wins is ND'd or worse. It's obvious Santana is suffering bullpen foolishness ungladly. He can't speak in more than code about doing all he can because it would be poor sportsmanship and poor team protocol to do so. Santana could take a page from Pedro in that respect and just roll with the punches. Johan's got his contract. His W column is immaterial. If he does everything he can to win, the team's wins will take care of themselves and I sense he'd be saner in the long run.

Pedro's fine right now. More than fine. Pedro is a legitimate starting pitcher again. That's no small feat when you add up the physical duress his body and the emotional anguish his mind have endured in 2008. I saw a wire service photo of Pedro placing a baseball in his father's burial plot last month. It's tough enough to go through the death of a loved one. Then it's photographed and disseminated and everything he does is watched. Then he has to go get himself together and pitch and pitch well and pitch like he's completely healthy. He's paid and paid well to do it, but he's a person. So are each of his relievers.

Martinez and his support crew took care of the Pirates for nine full innings Saturday night. Pedro got seven of them done with minimal fuss. It's tempting to say, oh, it's the Pirates, but we know from the fallacy of oh, it's the Pirates. Eddie Kunz and Joe Smith aside, Pedro's relievers took care of him at the end, just as his hitters took care of him early (for fun, let's count Pedro — a hit and a run — as one of his very own offensive weapons).

It's not a bad rotation, occasional mogul on the slope aside. Maybe it will be an OK bullpen, Wagner or not. And this team surprises you often with its resiliency. Could there have been a more discouraging loss than the 7-5 choke job on Monday? Could there have been a better response than the five straight wins that have occurred since? Remember the ten-game winning streak that changed the tenor of this season came off a dreadful defeat in Philadelphia. We were 5½ back and in third after that. We're in first now, two games over the Phillies, 3½ ahead of the Marlins. We have Pedro, Johan, Pelf, Maine and Ollie in any order you like. We have every reason to be magnanimous on those nights when the wins don't come so simply.

FYI, I'll be joining Mike Silva of NY Baseball Digest to talk Mets (what else?) Sunday night at 7:00. Give us a listen and call in if you feel like it.

No, no, no — that's not the Mets @ Pirates game I know. The Mets @ Pirates game I know ends with the Jolly Roger flying high and the Pirate Parrot squawking proud. It ends with missed Metropolitan opportunities galore and relievers whose heads are tucked somewhere south of the NEW YORK on their funereal black jerseys.

How did we not get that Friday night? How did the Mets hold on? How did the Mets win?

How did the Mets not lose?

That was one exceedingly losable Mets @ Pirates game. It had all the elements. It had the out-of-the-box scoring in the top of the first; it had the nagging sense we should have pushed more than two across the plate; it had the eerie calm of a no-name, no-stuff starter quietly mowing us down inning after inning; it had an atrocious call go against us on a stolen base attempt; it had a lead that began to look too lonely for too long; it had a pitcher pulled just in time in favor of a bullpen in whom trust is never to be placed.

It really did. It really proceeded as a Mets @ Pirates game in every sense of the word. The Mets' two bang-bang-bang runs at the start represented a suspiciously light total. Jason Davis didn't seem particularly overpowering — or powering — but gosh if he didn't shut the door from the first through the seventh after he allowed those two runs. Nary a rally flickered and Reyes really was robbed on an out call at second by an umpire who, it must be respectfully opined, is sightless, crooked or both. Pelfrey was at his non-Marlin best, good for seven scoreless. No way he should have been taken out, but Manuel said he wanted to keep his innings down because as a third-year pro in his first full big-league season Pelf's “in uncharted waters”.

How many of y'all assumed some Pirate would deposit some eighth-inning pitch in the uncharted waters of the Allegheny once it was delivered by a Met pitcher not named Mike Pelfrey? You can put your hands down now. Granted, Jack Wilson didn't quite splash down, but the punchless shortstop punched Duaner Sanchez's fourth pitch into the left field stands and our lead was cut in half and it was Mets @ Pirates per usual.

But then it wasn't. First, there was recovery as Sanchez retired the ageless (or perhaps just old) Chris Gomez. Then it was Feliciano time and Other Pedro got Nate McLouth, didn't get Freddy Sanchez but eventually got whichever LaRoche he says he is to make the third out.

The other distinguishing characteristic of this Mets @ Pirates affair was stupendous Mets defense. We saw it impressively in the sixth when Pelf handled a tricky Ryan Doumit tapper and ignited a 1-6-3 double play. We saw it startlingly in the seventh when Carlos Beltran gunned down, nailed and threw out one of the LaRoches at the plate (it was such textbook execution on Carlos' and Schneider's part that it deserves all the clichés it can carry).

But the bottom of the ninth…now that's the Mets @ Pirates inning that made Pittsburgh National Corp. famous. We've seen bottoms of ninths in PNC Park open up and swallow the Mets whole. We've seen them take the shape of sea monsters that rise up from each of the Three Rivers and shred the Mets alive. We've seen some bad stuff there.

How many of ya'll assumed we'd see more of that in Friday night's ninth? Shoot, I did. Hangdog Heilman takes the mound and I'm groaning and cringing, not just for the usual Aaron's pitching reasons. I'm groaning and cringing because it's Pittsburgh and the game's on the line and it doesn't have to be Heilman trying to protect a one-run lead but, of course, it is. You know something's coming, you just have no idea if it will show up in an ambulance or a hearse.

First there's a LaRoche. You know what they say about LaRoches: they're the only ones who will survive a nuclear holocaust. Sure enough, LaRoche grounds one to first that grazes Delgado's glove. Well, you think, that was gettable but it wasn't gotten and now Hangdog Heilman's burying this game in the backyard and…HEY! ARGENIS REYES SCOOPED IT UP IN THE HOLE…but LaRoche will be safe because Delgado's all out of position and…HEY! HEILMAN'S HUSTLING OVER THERE…but there's no way he's going to beat the runner and…HEY! HEILMAN BEAT LAROCHE TO THE BAG! HE'S OUT!

He was! He was! Like I said, stupendous Mets defense. It can really change the game you think you know.

After the highness of Argenis, the angst of Aaron subsided some if not altogether. Heilman struck out Brandon Moss but walked Jason Michaels because what would a bottom of the ninth with a one-run lead be without a Pirate baserunner? It wouldn't be PNC with the Mets in town. But my goodness, Jack Wilson, he of his first home run of 2008 in the eighth, didn't win the game for the Buccos. He didn't tie it and he didn't extend it. He popped to Jose and ended it. Ended it as a Mets win. Ended it so although ancient Jamie Moyer outpitched equally antique Greg Maddux on the other side of the continent, the Mets could wake up Saturday to a first-place lead and an icy cold Iron City.

That's not the Mets @ Pirates game I know, but I was sure glad to make its acquaintance.