Pedro Martinez looked ragged. Brandon Backe looked ragged.

The Mets had a promising inning immediately snuffed by a somewhat unlikely double play. The Astros had a promising inning immediately snuffed by a somewhat unlikely double play.

The Mets loaded the bases with nobody out. It looked like they might get nothing from such endeavors, but then with two out Carlos Delgado smashed a ball to left … and into Carlos Lee's glove. The Astros loaded the bases with nobody out. It looked like they might get nothing from such endeavors, but then with one out Mark Loretta hit a grand slam.

I liked it better when the parallel was holding.

The Marlins and Phillies lost, so we didn't lose any ground — but neither did we make any up. Is this a dip? A blip? A rut? A slide? You never know till later, when Good King Hindsight has ruled and the dots have been connected. Let's hope they're continuing to head up the mountain, rather than back into the valley.

The Mets aren't sellers at the trade deadline. If they're gonna be buyers, now or later, they're keeping it quiet. Manny Ramirez has been traded and untraded several times* since last night, since he signed with the Red Sox actually, so I never know what to make of July 31.

But you know what you can make of August 22? A good choice. August 22 is the next Gary, Keith and Ron Night at Shea, when the organization that has formed to help others can help you see the Mets play the Astros. Mezzanine tickets are $12 apiece for those who have bought GKR t-shirts, net proceeds — as with their now famous tops — go to the charities supported by each of our three SNY announcers:

• Gary Cohen: Women's Center of Greater Danbury, which “provides free and confidential services to prevent or lessen the trauma associated with domestic violence, sexual assault and other major life transitions.”

• Keith Hernandez: Cobble Hill Health Center, “a nonprofit skilled nursing facility located on Henry Street in the historic Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn…at the forefront of innovative and progressive treatment for the elderly and disabled for almost 30 years.”

• Ron Darling: Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, dedicated to finding a cure in its role as “the leading charitable funder and advocate of type 1 diabetes research worldwide.”

Those are the causes GKR was set up to aid and, judging by the proliferation of their shirts around Shea, they're making some inroads. Help them make some more by checking out and buying a t-shirt or two. They're pretty sweet, actually, as you can see for yourself. Plus they have some other other neat stuff. I'm an “It's Outta Here!” man, but you might be all about the mustache or something else altogether.

As Ron Darling himself has been known to say, wherever he goes, he makes sure he's comfortable. You'll be comfortable in one of these shirts and you'll feel good about who it's helping.

*Manny did get traded, to the Dodgers in a three-way with the Pirates that sends Jason Bay to the Red Sox. On behalf of 1776 fans everywhere, I formally request Boston's new leftfielder be referred to as Massachusetts Bay.

Once upon a time, we lost to the Marlins and were left hoping that a Nationals comeback against the Phillies might save us from second place.

It didn't work then. It didn't work tonight.

But — setting aside the Well Durr facts that a) the season isn't over and b) T#m Gl@vine isn't around to lecture us — it doesn't hurt right now. Doesn't feel bad at all, in fact. Because that team that once relied on the Nats for rescue — the Mets of smug and sloth and sulk — ceased to exist this month, when the new manager flipped on the lights, opened the closet door, rooted around under the bed and frog-marched out the things that had gone bump in so many sleepless nights. July 2008's 18-8 exorcism might be the pivotal stretch in a season that returns us to the playoffs. Or it might just be the best part of an also-ran year. But either way, it was the end of the Anti-Mets who'd haunted us since Memorial Day '07. Ultimately, it wasn't Gl@vine's departure or Santana's arrival that broke the spell, though we tried to convince ourselves of both. No, it was Jerry Manuel being Jerry Manuel. Thank the baseball gods for him, and for our deliverance.

Oh, tonight's loss hurt. You knew Mike Pelfrey wasn't going to be Cy Young for the rest of his days, but it was no fun watching him stare into the outfield as flares and rockets alike found grass and dirt instead of gloves. Carlos Delgado's depth charge, coming on the heels of Damion Easley's heroics, looked like it might tie the game, but instead it was only good for supplying a very accurate sounding of the deepest cranny of Soilmaster Stadium. And then minutes later Joe Smith was a portrait of misery, looking fixedly plateward lest the mere sight of Dan Uggla's screamer into the mid-Atlantic turn him into a baseball pillar of salt.

But it wasn't it for the Mets, not hardly. A third hit with two outs from a one-legged batter, the kind of countdown you'd like to see from the oft-lamented Marlon Anderson. A little floater from Brian Schneider. A high-velocity liner by Ramon Castro. And the tying run on first with José José José at the platé platé platé.

And that was it? It didn't work? We're in second place? Well, hell. We'll give the Astros everything they can handle and then some this weekend. The Phillies better enjoy it while they can — and who knows, maybe the Nats will have something to say about this race tomorrow night. I'm disappointed, but I'm sure not devastated. And I'm sure as hell not looking back to that dark time when these four teams had standings to sort out between them. Not for fear that something might be gaining on us, but because that infuriating version of our team is finally dead and gone, and the one that's taken its place is very much alive.

The state of the Mets, as far as we can tell from watching them on the field, is strong. How strong? Delgado strong. They're a first place team, a first place team repelling encroachments from their nearest challengers every week for two weeks running. That we can say with clarity clear up to 7:10 tonight when they get to prove it all over again. (We can also say with trade-deadline, white-flag-waving clarity that the Mets have only two challengers remaining in the N.L. East this season…aaaahhhh.)

But boy am I worried about the state of John Maine, diagnosed as he is with the deceptively innocent-sounding mild strain of the right rotator cuff. Jerry Manuel said it could be something serious, it could be nothing much. He could pitch Sunday.

He's not gonna pitch Sunday. There's no reason to pitch him Sunday even if he can. Off days being temporarily plentiful, he's not gonna need to see a regulation mound until a week from Saturday, August 9. That is contingent on Pedro Martinez going out and pitching on Friday and then five days later. Pedro returned to the team after traveling to the Dominican for very sad business. I heard him say he just wants to help the ballclub. He can help the ballclub by pitching Friday and then five days later.

Pedro is why I worry about John. How many times have we heard since June of 2006 that whatever is ailing Pedro is something that needs a little rest, maybe not very much rest, that he could be out on that mound when his next turn comes up? And how many times has he actually been out there to stay? Pedro knows from rotator cuffs and we know from Pedro's extended recovery times. Pedro says it will help that Maine is younger. I don't doubt that. Less mileage on the rotator cuff would imply less wear. But I do doubt that this is pie-easy recovery for John Maine. Even if he is pitching soon, do you really want him to be? It's a rotator cuff, for crissake. We wouldn't know what those are if not for pitchers straining them or tearing them.

Any time a Met is injured, I fully expect him to descend into a deep vacuum from which he will never be heard again. As recounted the other night, there has developed a ghost taxi squad of Mets who need a couple of days, maybe just a precautionary stint on the DL and they'll be back as good as new. Then they disappear into the ether, materializing for no more than innings at a time, maybe with the big club, maybe on a rehab field in some distant precinct. Then they disappear again. I feel for those who have spiraled into that black hole. I'll feel worst of all if John Maine joins them for the balance of 2008 and has to climb out of it to get to 2009. And it's not purely out of a sense of altruism for John Maine's well-being, decent fellow that he seems to be notwithstanding.

This team's starting pitching has become its calling card: Pelfrey, Santana and Perez — in that order — have made the Mets formidable. They've had among them no more than two discouraging outings in the last month, nothing you could label truly dreadful or alarming. You'd expect that from Johan. You've come to from Mike and Ollie. Their excellence has become so close to routine that you have to step back from it to realize how amazing it really is.

Pedro is still Pedro, which cuts both ways. If we receive a slightly enhanced version of what we saw out of him during the last month of last season (I'm not able to use the phrase “September 2007” with any kind of positive connotation), that would contribute greatly toward solidifying this rotation. That would mean four effective starters. We have no idea what Pedro Martinez represents for the final two months of 2008 because we haven't experienced any sustained, healthy contribution from him yet this year. That's the way Pedro being Pedro cuts uncomfortably. But he is Pedro Martinez and all that implies based on what you know about the man. That's the way Pedro being Pedro cuts reassuringly. I'm willing to lean just a little in that direction until completely disabused of the notion.

But you need a fifth starter, as the span between August 5 and August 27 presents 23 consecutive games with zero off days. John Maine has pitched like a fifth starter quite often these past couple of months. We now understand why, perhaps. The rotator cuff. You wouldn't ask anybody who makes his living with his arm to keep pitching with a strain, no matter how mild. You hope it unstrains on its own. You are dubious that it will. You try not to strain your fingers even as you cross them.

Retread Brian Lawrence pitches for the Richmond Braves, so that's positive. Prospect Jonathon Niese has jumped to Triple-A, so that's intriguing. Olympian Brandon Knight is on a fast plane to China, so that's way it goes. John Maine's status is as much up in the air as Team USA's Beijing-bound flight. That's what's discouraging, alarming and could be dreadful. You're in first place. The state of your Mets is strong. But you need John Maine to keep it that way.

We were supposed to go see the Cyclones.

That was the plan for me and Emily: With Joshua away at his grandparents until tomorrow night, we'd hop the Staten Island Ferry to see the Cyclones take on the Staten Island Yankees. We'd drink beer, eat hot dogs and ice cream, watch the legions of Brooklyn stomp their hated rivals, and then marvel at the beauty of New York Harbor before hopping in a celebratory cab home. Along the way, of course, we'd check in via handheld radio on the Mets, who were sure to be showing the upstart Marlins that their run at first place was not just cute but even a little admirable, but reaching its end for all that.

None of it worked out that way.

At first it seemed even better: Our old pal Lyle was in town and cheerfully accepted our invitation to accompany us to S.I. Lyle's seen Met fandom from another angle: He's spent the last couple of years out west, seeing (among other things) the Mets stagger through Oakland and Seattle on that awful 2005 road trip, clinch against the suddenly hapless Dodgers in '06, and bring Jerry Manuel his first win as Met skipper. It was cool on the deck of the ferry, the beer was cheap in that inexplicable Staten Island Ferry way, and a big crowd had gathered to see the Cyclones and Yankees face off. What more could you want?

Well, you could want the game to not be sold out.

Needless to say, this hadn't been part of the plan. The larval Yankees have a nice park, with a killer view of three cityscapes — Jersey City to the left, Manhattan at dead center, and ever-growing Downtown Brooklyn to the right. But it's not Keyspan — in our experience sellouts are rare and the fans are interested in a rather distracted way. But not tonight. Nonplussed but not particularly worried, Lyle and I started walking up and down the block with our best Clueless Baseball Fan faces on, waiting for the inevitable call of “Tickets — who needs tickets?”

Except nobody said any such thing.

There were all manner of sketchy-looking guys outside the ballpark who certainly looked like they'd be selling tickets, but weren't. (What exactly they were doing is another question, since none of them seemed particularly employable.) We certainly tried, but the listless hangers-around looked vaguely affronted when Lyle tactfully asked, “You seen anybody selling tickets?” Perhaps Staten Island hasn't gotten the idea that hot commodities can be sold for more than face value — if you've been around the ferry terminal, you can probably attest that Staten Island isn't really up on the generally accepted basics of commerce. There is little to do around there but take in a ballgame — provided you have tickets — or get back on the ferry. Given the beautiful view and easy access to the rest of New York City, this makes about as much sense as a ballgame without scalpers. I don't get Staten Island.

So get back on the ferry is what we did. (Insult to injury: I'd somehow misplaced the radio.) This time around the beers didn't taste quite so sweet, and we took somewhat less joy in identifying Brooklyn landmarks. We were trying to figure out where to eat. This took some doing — the Financial District is about evenly split between Dickensian beer bars where you'd be scared to eat and fancy restaurants without TVs. But after a few false starts, Emily remembered that the last time we'd been to Mark Joseph Steakhouse (it's a cut off the Peter Luger's bone, except the waiters are nice), the Mets game had been on in the bar. So she got on the cellphone. Could you eat in the bar? Sure! Could you watch the Met game? The bartender's a big fan. Good enough for us.

And so it was that we piled into Mark Joseph, where the bartender was indeed a big Met fan (and a very nice guy to boot), the steak was prepared sizzling in butter (and what food is not improved by dunking it in butter?), the burgers were thick and juicy, and the Mets were leading 2-0.

Or at least they were when we got there. We watched John Maine successfully repel the ministrations of Manuel and trainers once, then succumb a pitch later. We watched Carlos Muniz outrun a shoe. We watched David Wright steal a run with remarkably heads-up baserunning. We watched Scott Schoeneweis get blooped and dinked and parachuted into unhappy submission, staring out at the field with the what-can-happen-next expression of a man whose car has just been staved in by a chunk of blue ice crapped out by an invisible 747. We watched balls elude Brian Schneider and Ramon Castro. We watched Robert Andino bedevil us again. (And in doing so, we remembered that Matt Wise was once a part of this team.)

In short, it was what feels to me like a typical Soilmaster Stadium game: a mess in which the Mets couldn't stop stumbling over their own feet, bled off enough of their reserves of Moxie and Grit and Fight to stay in it, and then were undone by a sloppy Marlin attack that was effective as it was aesthetically displeasing. My God I hate this place. Oh how I pray for this team to head off to San Antonio so I never have to see it again.

Trudging across the cobblestones to get a cab, Emily and Lyle and I agreed that everything had been wonderful — good friends, good Met conversation, good food, good drink. Everything except the final score. But that's the way it goes sometimes — on some evenings, all the audibles in the world can't account for an Andino.

(Oh. At least the Cyclones won.)

Inspired by Stephen King's Christine, Faith and Fear reader Joe Lauzardo offers us an alternate take on what everybody assumes will be the last days of Shea Stadium. He sends it, he says, out of “a spirit of loyalty” to our lame duck of a ballpark — and maybe a little for “revenge” toward those who would destroy it.

It is night. Shea Stadium is watching its apparent replacement in the close distance and its own subsequent demise in the very near future. The empty ballpark resonates with the faintest sound of cheering, perhaps screaming. Are they cheering for the Mets? The Jets? The Beatles? Clearly it is the sound of a day that has passed.

Shea on this night, however, doesn't merely sit and watch for long. A howling wind is the next sound to be heard. It blows in from left field, off Flushing Bay, and it thrusts corrugated steel plates — one blue, one orange — into the middle of the diamond.

A blue plate? An orange plate? Of all the materiel gathered at the construction site on the other side of the blue outfield fence, there is nothing matching that description. From where did these pieces appear?

This is no chance wind, no accidental accumulation of steel. No, it is as if the park is trying to rejuvenate itself supernaturally.

The ground begins to rumble uncontrollably. The stadium lifts itself from its foundation, then crawls from side to side knocking down fixtures and lights.

Approaching the structure planned as its replacement, Shea's open end surrounds the new ballpark and, with a quick shudder and the sound of crashing metal and rumbling concrete, Shea Stadium devours Citi Field like a late-night snack.

As daylight breaks, the sun sheds light on an apparent reversal of time.

There is only one stadium!

Shea Stadium!

It is adorned with hundreds of those blue and orange steel plates, looking as it did in April of '64. Off its shoulder, the departed subway extension, gone to make way for Citi Field, is somehow back up. It, too, emits its pristine 1964 vibe.

Everybody gasps at what the sun has revealed: an apocalyptic confrontation that has rocked the Flushing night. Two ballparks, one winner. They see it from the 7. They see it from the Grand Central. They see it from LaGuardia.

It is November. Demolition of Shea is to begin this morning. But there is Shea, standing as if new. And there is Citi, nowhere to be seen. Otherwise all is 2008 — nothing else is disturbed.

Everybody starts thinking the same thought: those idiots tore down the wrong stadium — typical Mets!

Into the confusion rushes a man we shall call Mr. Citi. Mr. Citi has overseen construction of the new temple, the temple that has now vanished from the face of the earth, let alone Flushing. He wasn't going to take this lying down.

His eyes set red with anger, Mr. Citi grabs a wrecking bar from a nearby chop shop and marches across 126th Street. If Shea is going to wreak havoc on his masterpiece, Mr. Citi is going to wreak havoc on Shea.

Or so he thinks.

As it is November, Shea is gated shut. So Mr. Citi goes after the gates. He bangs his way inside Gate C to the maze of escalators and ramps. The scent overwhelms him. It is paint. Fresh paint. Fresh paint from, yup, 1964.

Everything inside is new, too. New as it was, that is. Shea Stadium has returned to its youth. His fuming gives way to stunned silence. Everywhere he looks, Shea classic has replaced new Shea. It's got its whole future ahead of it.

Mr. Citi sprints up the first ramp he finds and tears out onto the field itself. It is indeed Shea Stadium from its World's Fair heyday. It is the most modern ballpark in America. The scoreboard is enormous. The public address system broadcasts a jazzy “Mexican Hat Dance”. The seats are a veritable kaleidoscope of color, starting with the yellow wooden chairs that are closest to the grass. The outfield walls are a calming sea green. And beyond those walls? Parking Lot B, of course. Nothing else. Citi Field isn't there. Who would build a new stadium in a parking lot of what is, as far as the eye can tell, a new stadium? A beautiful new 1964 stadium, at that?

Nobody, that's who.

Mr. Citi is left alone to contemplate the irony. But he doesn't have long to think, because he hears a crashing sound emanating from the home team bullpen.

It's a golf cart.

It wears a Mets cap.

It is driverless.

Yet it is speeding his way.

No ushers, no security, no union carpenters or contractors can save him now. It is Mr. Citi versus Shea's bullpen buggy.

The buggy is about to have its way with him.

He is cornered by the first base dugout.

He falls into the cart.

The cap snaps down on him.

The buggy takes a U-turn…

…across the infield…

…and then the outfield…

…and through the centerfield fence and out the parking lot.

The bullpen buggy is headed for the docks of the World's Fair Marina.

The faintest of splashing sounds can be heard over the happy organ.

Next April, the buggy is back in the bullpen, the fans are back in the seats and beautiful Shea Stadium, the Big Shea of memory, is open for business.

With plenty of parking.

Next Monday, we shift from the supernatural to something marginally more reality-based and dissect the official Greatest Moments at Shea ballot.

Reason 53,691 why I berate myself for listening to sports talk radio: the wet blanket hosts (you know who they are) who slap down every excited Mets caller with “don't go crazy now,” which is shorthand for you know your first-place team on the 15-4 roll isn't very good because I say it isn't very good.

To which I borrow from the advice of late Cardinal announcer Jack Buck: go crazy folks, go crazy.

If you're not enjoying your first-place Mets on their 15-4 roll, you are a little deranged. You're entitled to fret that it won't last and that they need more for the long haul and that, well, they're the Mets. I understand the impulse and I'm down with it, but honestly, to heck with that, amigos. ¡Van locas, personas! ¡Van locas!

I was going a little crazy myself at Shea this afternoon. Perhaps it was from the sleep-deprivation method of rooting that has become so familiar to me. Saturday night became Sunday morning and encompassed a long and winding road home, followed by the need to blurt out the great and terrible details, then a dozen winks, a quick shower, a peck on the cheek for the wife, a pat on the head for the cats (or did I peck the cats and pat the wife?) and back on the LIRR for more Mets. Thus, my baseball senses have been heightened and my reactions have been enhanced.

But why shouldn't they have been? Johan was pitching and for the first time in his Mets career, that meant something beyond accomplished starter keeps team in game. Johan Santana has been mostly a pleasing concept for four months. We loved the idea of getting him, we loved getting him, we looked forward to him. Then, for more than half a season, the Santana we got was akin to Tug McGraw's Peggy Lee fastball: Is that all there is? I couldn't tell whether the Mets' every-fifth-day inertia and our sour energies were letting him down or whether his ability to give up a given hit at the most suboptimal juncture was maybe, just maybe, letting us down. Either way, it was all good but not great. Where was this Johan Santana ace for the ages we kept hearing about?

Oh there he was: on the mound in the ninth, completing the first authentic complete game the Mets have banked since late '06. There he was again, belting two hits to right, even if one's fairness surprised him into a standstill. There he was before, taking a no-hitter into the fifth, efficient as IBM in its heyday.

The chants in the ninth that challenged my throat after a weekend of vocal pro-Mets, anti-Cardinal engagement were simple yet exhilarating: JO-HAN! JO-HAN! You could do it for any pitcher with two syllables, but for JO-HAN! it felt like deliverance. It's not so much the CG alone as it was the timing, a day after the night that wouldn't end, a day after the night when every reliever pitched and all could use a blow. Santana gave the Mets that. It would have been only a slightly big deal twenty years ago to throw nine. It was a huge transaction today.

Elsewhere in the Metstone galaxy of stars, Carlos Beltran began to twinkle again. I've held an article of faith about this club since 2006: if Beltran's hot, we're all on fire. Beltran was the one main Met not really joining in the parade of hits and homers since the Manuel era gained traction. But now he's hitting. And he's really, really fielding. The catch he made on Ryan Ludwick in the seventh — the one Steve Finley didn't make on Pratt in '99, the one Rick Ankiel didn't make on Tatis in the ninth Saturday night — I'm pretty certain was the best I've ever witnessed at Shea. DiamondVision chimed in with about a thousand angles immediately thereafter. They revealed Carlos made his catch with a bird floating by. A bird! And not a red one either.

Everybody hit, everybody fielded, everybody won. So when the standings were posted on the scoreboard after the final out (I don't know that I'd stuck around previously this season to watch postgame highlights), and I saw the GB column…

New York —

Philadelphia 1.5

Florida 1.5

…I went crazy folks, I went crazy. Not as crazy as the Yankees fan who (according to the sign his buddy waved) “lost a bet to a Mets fan” and paraded around in a summery gown, nor as crazy as the Missouri turnip farmer who wielded a PENDLETON 1987 placard all about before the five-run sixth exploded in his face (“WHERE'S YOUR PENDLETON NOW?” I shouted in sync with my borderline obnoxious behavior all weekend; “DIE ALREADY MOLINA!” was in heavy rotation, too), but good crazy. Just clapping and yelling and generally exuding over-the-top joy that first you wish your team would take up summertime residence in first place and then, hey, they've done it, with one of the best pitchers in the game shutting down a tough opponent, with three more batters busting fences, with every reason to laugh in the faces of those who would tell us our giddiness is unwarranted, that our enthusiasm is premature, that our craziness is crazy. (Plus I scooped up an abandoned giveaway lunchbox; whatever kid left it behind hasn't been a Mets fan as long as me and he surely hasn't been eating lunch as long as me.)

You're not going crazy over how well these Mets are playing? You're the lunatic, buddy.