Not so long ago, Mike Pelfrey making it through the fifth inning would have been worthy of somewhat grudging attaboys. The Kansas righty had size, stuff, a first-round pedigree and the most-famous visible tongue this side of Gene Simmons, but he rarely had results. It felt like you could diagram most Pelfrey starts: He'd show flashes, particularly with that evil sinking fastball of his, but quickly have trouble hitting his spots with his change and curveball, leading him to sideline the secondary pitches and try to get by with just the fastball, which would lead to an eruption of walks and hits and an early exit. And looming over all that was that prospect pedigree, which has been more blessing than curse for some time around here — recall, if you dare, the dull semi-parade that's featured the likes of Dave Mlicki, Jay Payton, Grant Roberts, Terrence Long, Pat Strange and Victor Diaz, to name just a few who arrived much celebrated and departed barely noticed. Sure, you have David Wright and Jose Reyes (and thank goodness), but given our underwhelming farm production of the last decade or so, a Met fan can be forgiven for wondering not what went wrong with the other guys, but what possibly could have gone right with those two.

But to the very short list of prospect success stories, perhaps we can now add Mike Pelfrey.

What happened? Maybe it's that Dan Warthen believes a curveball complements a fastball in a way that's nothing like ketchup and ice cream. Certainly you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Big Pelf seems a lot more comfortable under the Manuel/Warthen regime than he did during the Peterson/Randolph reign. When Willie came back to his California hotel room to find Omar waiting, Pelfrey had just beaten the Angels in singularly unimpressive fashion, allowing six earned runs over six innings to improve to 3-6 with a 4.62 ERA. Since then, he's 9-2 with an ERA of 3.12.

But I'm a little suspicious of that, perhaps just because as studious fans we eat these stories up — the “A-ha!” moment from the new coach is the baseball equivalent of the heroic prosecutor extracting a witness-stand confession from the bad guy in a courtroom drama. It might just be that Pelfrey came to the big leagues at 22, with very little in the way of minor-league experience, and had to absorb a fair number of the knockings-around that are a pitcher's life lessons. (Whether absorbing those beatings in brutally public fashion was good for him or not is another question.)

Whatever the case, tonight was one to celebrate. The Mets staked Pelfrey to a 5-0 lead courtesy of the wonderful Daniel Murphy and the horrible Atlanta Braves infield (though thankfully, fill-in first baseman Greg Norton was OK on a play that looked uncomfortably like Todd Hundley bearing down on Cliff Floyd's exposed forearm), then did their usual Metsian offensive snooze, letting the Braves creep back into view. In the sixth, up 6-1, Pelfrey gave up a bunt single to Gregor Blanco, then walked Yunel Escobar and Chipper to bring up Brian McCann with the bases loaded and none out. Three months ago, we all would have waited for Pelfrey to crumble; tonight, you felt like he'd find his way out of it — and one nifty double play from a cool-headed Argenis Reyes, he more or less had. That led him to the ninth and a 3-0 count on Larry Wayne, our old enemy now reduced to a figurehead. Again, one might have expected to peek ahead in the script and find a Chipper double or home run and Pelf trudging off the mound to be replaced by one arsonist or another. But no: Three pitches later, it was Chipper trudging away.

The worries about Pelfrey in September will likely concern his passage into uncharted territory innings-wise. That's not to be laughed off, not if these Mets wind up with October dates on their calendar after all. But look how far Mike Pelfrey's come. Too many innings? He and we should have such problems.

We're nuts, we Mets fans. Honest to god we are. There was so much doubt permeating Shea Stadium last night, right up to the moment Delgado doubled in the eighth, that you would have thought we were the fourth-place team a dozen games out and that the Braves were the division leaders.

Force of habit, maybe, but misplaced anxiety for this particular era. But at Shea, where the beers are $8.50, anxiety comes with the territory.

We trailed 3-2 from the third until the eighth. That's five innings. You would have thought it was five years — like 1977 through 1981. And, based on the chatter in my particular box, you could have easily mistaken Carlos Delgado for Mike Jorgensen, save for the splendid defense and epic grand slam against the Dodgers many moons ago. Jorgy was clutch! Delgado?

Delgado had been slumping. In July he had been surging. But that was July. That was history. The Mets' six straight wins from August 12 to August 17 were history. Dusty, musty history ever since the morbid afternoon of August 18 (Mets fan math: 1 loss > 6 wins). What had Delgado done for us lately? Strikeout and two grounders to second across the first seven innings of August 19. It was the eighth now. The bases were loaded. Carlos Delgado, 26 homers, 79 RBI coming into the evening, at bat. Carlos Delgado, borderline Hall of Fame slugger, up with three ducks on the pond. Carlos Delgado, whose revival made accurate the phrase first-place Mets, staring at a large chance to change the game.

Boy are we in trouble.

I was sucked into this vortex of doom pretty easily. Yes, I said, Delgado…oh dear. Delgado will fail and all the goodwill from July will evaporate altogether. This is his last chance to hear cheers at Shea Stadium, because once he grounds into a 4-6-3 double play, Carlos Delgado will not be welcome here any longer, not this year, not next. What a downer that Delgado will go back to being booed and inevitably doling out snippy half-quotes in the clubhouse; the Phillies are beating the Nationals, so the lead will be a half-game before it completely vanishes; it was fun while it lasted; cripes, does Luis Castillo really have to come off the DL before the rosters expand?

Then Delgado doubled to the base of the left field wall off Will Ohman* and two runs scored and the third base side of Field Level, on my encore final stay in the lower stands, got up and boogied. The joint was literally jumping. The joints that hold the joint together were probably rupturing. Same thing happened on the first base side last month when Billy Joel did “We Didn't Start The Fire” (such enthusiasm for children of Thalidomide). I'd lived through joyful jumpiness in the playoffs way the hell upstairs, but Billy's show was my first exposure to it down below. Delgado's double was the second. It wasn't the last play at Shea. It wasn't even the last play of the eighth. But we're nuts, we Mets fans. Honest to god we are. We assume the worst and when what's delivered winds up 180 degrees opposite of what we expect, we exult to extents that make two-run doubles vibrate like twelve-run homers.

Tavarez came in to pitch. Easley singled in two more to make it 6-3. The jumping recommenced. Castro then doubled in another. More amateur gravity-testers, more ups and downs. The third base side in a rally, I must report, doesn't feel as secure as the first base side during a concert. Your mother would nag you to cut that out! if it were your bed you were doing this to. Most children's beds, however, are probably sturdier at this point than the third base Field Level at Shea Stadium. Had Yunel Escobar not robbed Argenis Reyes, I'm pretty sure we would have seen the seats roll off their tracks (bad news for Mets fans, but an opportunity for the Jets to come home, I suppose).

Four-run leads with no particular arm to close don't feel any more secure than Field Level during an improv bunny hop. During one of the many festive Atlanta pitching changes in the eighth, somebody in A/V got the bright idea to play one of those line-dancing numbers that instruct everybody to jump two steps to the left and so forth. People were actually doing it. Swell, more pressure on the infrastructure. A few more runs and there'd be plenty of final season souvenirs strewn about for the taking, including my spine.

I exaggerate slightly, just as we did when glooming so determinedly at the sight of only a four-run lead entering the ninth. Scott Schoeneweis, as good or bad a choice as any Met reliever at that moment, came in and gave up some hard-hit balls. None of them mattered. The Mets were golden by then. The lead held. The seats held. The Mets, they had their own edge. Even some scattered mock tomahawk chops — remember those? — couldn't piss off the deities who normally frown on that sort of behavior. The Braves had just surrendered a five-spot and, one of us noted, Brian Jordan loomed nowhere inside their dugout.

The Mets won. We went nuts. Not necessarily in that order.

*Will Ohman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. Or maybe I'm thinking of somebody else.

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.