Dorian Gray had a portrait that aged so he didn't have to. Maybe Aaron Heilman could try that trick.

With every bad outing, the portrait would get a little more squinty, a little more hangdog, a little more slump-shouldered, a little more looking like it just built into an industrial-strength lemon or walked into class and got handed a pop quiz. The advantage, of course, is this would leave the real Aaron Heilman looking not at all that way. He'd remain broad-shouldered and impassive, even as batters strolled to first and balls found holes and boos rained down on him.

Heilman is by all accounts a smart guy (and not just because, gosh, he actually reads books — he was the one who noticed the Reds had batted out of order) and a good guy, but his body language has always been terrible, and right now his pitching is too. And we're kind of screwed because of it. He doesn't have options, so he can't work out his demons in New Orleans. (And despite our anger with him, it would be foolish to expose Heilman to waivers.) He can't be turned into the second coming of Mike Maddux, because there isn't an obvious candidate to take over his duties. When he's right, he can get lefties and righties out. The alternatives? Pedro Feliciano and Scott Schoeneweis (sick today, apparently) are lefty specialists who get torched by righties. Duaner Sanchez has already stepped into some of what used to be Heilman's situations, and it's not clear to me that his stamina's back, or that his pre-crash velocity will ever return. Matt Wise (tired today, apparently) has pretty decent numbers against lefties and righties but just returned — and it isn't clear that he's mentally recovered from beaning Pedro Lopez last year. Joe Smith did well cleaning up Heilman's mess tonight but is still finding his way. (On the other hand, think of the riot in the stands if the Mets had actually sent Smith down and Jorge Sosa had come on tonight and pitched like Jorge Sosa.) There's nobody in the minor leagues who's a compelling audition — calling on Carlos Muniz or Willie Collazo or Ruddy Lugo would be less about them than it would be about indulging one's desire for Not Aaron Heilman. Pulling a Hail Mary and summoning Eddie Kunz? That kind of thing never works for us.

No, we're going to have to work this out together somehow.

Aaron's latest failings erased a game that was fairly interesting, all things considered — you had Claudio Vargas's perfectly serviceable debut (of course, we were offering Nelson Figueroa hosannas not so long ago too), some wretched luck for the Mets (did Ryan Zimmerman even see Beltran's liner before it tore into his glove?), some good luck for the Mets that didn't matter enough (the fielding misadventures of Saul Rivera began as comedy and turned tragic for our side), some oddities (David Wright's bat disintegrating on a flyout to medium center), a helluva home run by Zimmerman, and Moises Alou cussing out an ump like a player half his age.

But above all it was another loss — the homestand that was supposed to get the Mets well against weak competition now stands at 3-3, with our hopes for a series split with the mighty Nats (not exactly the stuff of war cries and sounding trumpets, is it?) resting on the uncertain right arm of Mike Pelfrey. Our record since last Memorial Day: 74-74. Just another interchangeable chapter in the continuing misadventures of The Mediocre-est Team Money Could Buy.

John Maine got the win last night…on the very first pitch of the game.

I didn't notice Nelson Figueroa responding to the Nationals' dugout antics Monday night, cocooning deep in my parka between innings as I was, but apparently the Nationals were acting like “softball girls” for encouraging each other on rhythmically. Given that they'd worked out five walks while Nelson was pitching, I might add they were softball girls with a very good eye.

Figueroa was pissed because, well, probably because he sucked his way off the 25-man roster but also because the Nats had violated some unwritten rule about comportment or enjoying themselves too much. Whatever it was, he was steamed and, presumably, his suddenly former mates on the baseball boys team (the one that lost 10-4) didn't take it too well either.

So what does his successor in the rotation to which he used to belong do Tuesday night? He hits the first batter with the first pitch.

And to that I say way to go John Maine — way to go! (clap clap!). Way to tell the Washington Nationals to cut out that extraneous, superfluous BS that had nothing to do with why the Mets lost Monday. Way to say you can take your cheers and rub them on your bruises if you don't like it, just as the Nats had said, through their steady scoring, that Nelson Figueroa could take his indignation, fling it wide of Brian Schneider's mitt and pack it off to New Orleans or destinations unknown.

I'm ambivalent where technically nonexistent codes and conducts are concerned. I've never been able to figure out for certain why a curtain call is supposedly showing up the pitcher, why a non-curtain call is supposedly sending the wrong message, why it's all right to toss your helmet after a walkoff home run, why some batters can stare at their deep fly balls without repercussion, why the best player in the sport is bush for yelling at the opposing infielder trying to settle under a pop fly, why it's OK to come inside, why it's wrong to come inside, why a good, clean takeout slide is definitively different from a supposedly dirty slide, why an effusive handshake is either too much or absolutely appropriate, why turning your headgear inside out and yelling “attaboy” is being a good holler guy, why urging on a rally from the dugout with a bit of creativity is akin to acting like, heaven forbid, a girl…it's all very confusing to me. Hence, my rule of thumb is thus:

• If the Mets do it, it's fine.

• If somebody does it to the Mets, it's not.

Hypocrisy is at home and logic takes a holiday, but do we really watch baseball to make Socrates happy? Or are we trying to advance the cause of whatever logo is on the cap we're wearing at night games even though caps are designed to keep the sun out of our eyes? Screw logic — Let's Go Mets (clap! or woo! or not).

Maine, by the way, said he was merely trying to establish the inside of the plate when his very first pitch just happened to get away and just happened to hit Felipe Lopez on the leg (Shawn Estes, take note). Another crazy coincidence, don'tcha think? Team that gets beat like a drum by a showy drummer seems intent on breaking the other team's drumsticks at the very beginning of the next night's set — John Maine has better control than that. But his judgment is even better than his control.

Let's not extrapolate this from message pitch to the specter of Bert Campaneris flinging a bat at Lerrin LaGrow. It doesn't always have to escalate or deteriorate. Last night it did neither. Putting the first runner on (there went the perfect game) doesn't mean, either, that you're digging yourself a terrible hole, not when you're the very competent Johnny Maine. Back during the Clemens Wars and such I was usually against manly retaliation because I didn't think the Mets could afford to give the Yankees extra outs. Top of the first, against the Nationals, the Mets could. That, too, is taking care of business. And hat tip to the umpires for not going overboard with warnings, even when Lopez glared at Maine.

Umpires should always let the players police themselves. Or the umpires should always take control of the action right away. Whichever one works to the Mets' advantage, whichever one makes me feel avenged at the operative moment.

John (or “Mainie Eisenhower” as I sometimes call him from the couch in terms more endearing than Nelson Figueroa might grasp) took matters in hand and then took the Nationals with him. Other than the homer to Ryan Zimmerman — sooner or later there's going to be a homer to Ryan Zimmerman — he was soothingly effective. Glad he got enough runs to literally get the win, too. It gave him five on the year which broke the three-way tie for team lead among himself, Santana and Jorge Sosa. In fact, until Saturday, Sosa was the staff leader in wins. Now Sosa, ERA 7.06, is Assignmentbound (frigid fans behind me were loudly advocating the activation of Matt Wise Monday night, so you had an inkling Sosa was literally and figuratively going down), same as Figueroa, ERA 5.12. Both succumbed to a club indulging in softball tactics. Thank goodness one night later Johnny Maine, ERA 2.81, came to play hardball.

(Clap clap!)

Alert the dairies: we need to post pictures of people on the sides of milk cartons. Lots of people. The boxscore says there were 45,321 in attendance at Shea Stadium Monday night, but my educated estimate tells me we started with no more than 18,000 and simple fingers 'n' toes counting says we ended with approximately 800.

Where did everybody go? And can we save one milk carton for the Met momentum that's gone missing again?

Better yet, make it ice cream. Or iced tea. Or just ice, like the glacier that Shea froze into between frigid Sunday and bitter Monday.

Very bitter Monday.

This was, as my partner suggests, one of those games you associate with a winter night, not so much because you should think of it in winter, but because I can attest first-hand that it was in fact played in winter. Seems like an all right idea when the calendar indicates it actually is winter. I've experienced those baseball-crazed January evenings when I've thought, man, it would be great to be at Shea right now, even if outside is as cold as the inside of a Slurpee cup, even if the wind is howling like a Crazy Eddie commercial and even if I'm wearing so many clothes that my old Nixon Administration cronies in the Pentagon call me Melvin R. Layered.

Forgive the subtopical references, for it was sub-subtropical weather and then some on Monday night. It made Sunday afternoon feel like, well, a good day for baseball. There haven't been many of those this season — nor much good baseball.

I honestly thought we were scaling a hump after the weekend. The Mets seemed so competent twice against the Reds and so all-around able before leaving L.A. and pretty darn good in Phoenix. Peel the layers of the onion, however, and you remember that it was all potentially illusory: we always win in Arizona and we always beat up on Brad Penny and Cincinnati is Cincinnati when Bronson Arroyo isn't pitching.

We're still not all that ept. We're still in a two-season .500 groove, 74-74 at last check from May 30, 2007 through May 12, 2008. We're still capable of looking overmatched by the Washington Nationals on nights barely fit for taking on the Washington Redskins. It may be a different year, but with the Nats piling on the extra points and the Mets' prevent defense preventing nothing, it may as well have been last September.

Except it was warmer then.

Given that I had barely withstood six innings of elements on Sunday and that weather.com was giving me no better than a 40% chance of not precipitation (and a 60% chance of feeling my extremities), I was in the counterintuitive position of sort of rooting for a don't-screw-with-us rainout until about three in the afternoon. That was when my friend Mike Steffanos told me he was leaving from his home in the wilds of Connecticut to reach Shea by car, train, subway and sleigh. Once Mike begins his journey, it would be cruel not to play — in theory.

Mike, high-quality company regardless of low-grade score, graciously secured the best seats I've sat in this season to date: Loge, Section 3, Row B (providing a vantage point so fine it deserves capitalization). This is the part of Loge that's treated by Shea personnel as Field Level, Jr., akin to a Forest Hills living room where plastic covers the ancient sofa because oh no, we don't sit on that. An usher actually bothered to chase strays out of noticeably vacant Row A in the late innings. “I could lose my job,” he pleaded to a father who was miffed that he and his two boys were booted after three innocent pitches.

You mean there are firing offenses at Shea Stadium?

I wish no man deprived his livelihood, not a humble just-followin'-orders usher, not a sweet kid from Lincoln High who couldn't find the strike zone with a compass (though I'll have to get back to you on the older kid from Brooklyn who doesn't seem to be managing very well this year or last). I would, however, like to stop scooping small solace from being among the hardy handful that sits through 13-1 and 10-4 beheadings to their completions as spring then becomes the winter. The fine print on the back of the ticket declares nothing about the pursuit of happiness where competitiveness is concerned. I thought it was kind of implied that the Mets could hang with the Pirates or Nationals on any given date this season. Maybe not.

But for all my morning moaning, I can say, for the second time in a two-week span, I was there. I was there at the end of one of these things. I was among, I swear, maybe 800 people when Saul Rivera retired Carlos Delgado to put it in books nobody will ever check out of their local library. When I deduced that the final out would probably be registered by Delgado, who bore the brunt of the boos that weren't directed at Lastings Milledge (what'd he do other than change uniforms at the Mets' behest?), I figured Carlos would hear it but good. But he didn't. When there are 800 of you in the stands and one of them on the field, you're kind of in this together. A Mets fan who remained to the 195th and final minute of yet another abortion of a debacle of a disaster of a game probably wasn't the kind of Mets fan who stuck around to boo.

Or if he was, he knew not to because Delgado could easily pick him out from 800 people and come after him with a bat — and tap him to the second baseman.

The baseball gods have a vast assortment of cruelties, but one of their better tricks is the rainout-turned-blowout: You think there's no way the game will be played, only to have the weather hold off so you get a game after all — and then this gift turns out to be a numbing basket of suck that leaves you wondering why it couldn't have freaking rained like it was supposed to.

You knew that eventually the Nats' collection of ex-Mets would punish the current Mets, that Jesus Flores and Lastings Milledge and Odalis Perez would find a way to victimize us. (What? Joe Morgan's convinced Odalis is a Met, so he ought to count somehow. I don't mind if my facts are wrong, as long as they're gritty facts that present themselves right.) I'm sure Lo Duca was putting the whammy on the Mets somewhere, too. Between all that and the sucking, why watch a mess like this? Well, because it's part of the contract — but also because during the winter, when the trees are bare and the grass is covered with snow and the howling of the wind makes you think of wolves on the Russian steppes, you stare out the window and try to think what you wouldn't do to watch, say, one crappy inning of the Mets going down 1-2-3 against the Nationals with 5,000 people vaguely watching. Well, remember this one in nine months — this is what it looked like.

But hey, it's baseball. You never know what might happen — a second baseman might turn the 14th unassisted triple play in baseball history. (Oh, sorry — that was 500 miles to the west.)

Since there was no triple play, what to take from this one? Nothing I didn't already know. Damion Easley should be our second baseman. Joe Smith should stay on the team. Jorge Sosa should be DFA'ed. Elijah Dukes shouldn't lead cheers on the bench, though it's only fair to note that's the least-scary thing he's done in some time. It shouldn't be 52 degrees with 25 MPH winds in mid-May. And to ease the annoyance of games like this, they should play baseball most every day.

Oh, wait — they do. Score one for the baseball gods after all.

The odd part about the Reds batting out of order in the ninth was I heard about it in the car on the way back from the train station. That was odd because something even more unusual than a team sending up the wrong batter had occurred: I left a game early enough to be home in time for its conclusion.

That’s right. Far rarer than a violation of the every batter bats when he’s supposed to — rarer still than the starting pitcher who steals second — is your correspondent suggesting in the fifth inning that leaving Shea Stadium would be an agreeable proposition.

Talk about out of order!

There was a game in 1983 when a headache so got the best of me that I told Joel, that’s it, I got to leave this place, I don’t care what these people think. There was a misguided attempt to catch half of a Mets game and the beginning of a Cyclones game in 2003, winding up seeing no Cyclones and missing the retirement announcement of Bob Murphy altogether. There was a midweek afternoon in 1998 when I showed up alone in the third with the Braves kicking the Mets’ ass; I ate a turkey sandwich, watched the Braves kick the Mets’ ass some more, and gave up by the seventh.

Those are the glaring exceptions. I’ve arrived a little late from time to time, I’ve infrequently bowed to fatigue or peer pressure or commutation and given up ninth innings that could be safely projected as moot, but I almost never clear out before Lou Monte hectors Lazy Mary into getting up. But Sunday was one of those days.

Why? Because, I reassuringly discovered, I am capable of mild selflessness. I wasn’t sure I had it in me.

Twenty-one years ago yesterday the Mets played the Reds in Cincinnati. It was an utterly inconsequential game that coincided with a spectacularly consequential event.

It was May 11, 1987. As I’ve told the story several times here, I snapped off my radio with the Mets on the verge of being blown out and opened my eyes to find I was about to commence upon on a lifelong winning streak. That was the moment I came into contact with my future wife. I would marry her. She would marry me…and the Mets.

Yesterday the Mets played the Reds at Shea. Twenty-one years after our relationship began, the three of us got together again…the four of us, I guess, counting, as we occasionally do, the Reds.

All these May 11s since 1987, all these night-we-met anniversaries we have toasted, yet this was actually our first May 11 at the ol’ ballpark. I have a standing invitation extended to Stephanie for every Mets game I think of attending. They are almost without fail graciously demurred upon. One game once in a great while? Swell. The steady diet on which I subsist? Night games in April? Day games in which Sol threatens to bear down a little too aggressively on my literally fair lady? Weather Channel-checking affairs for which I’m unfurling longjohns and convincing myself “it won’t be so bad”?

I should go and have a good time and tell her about it later.

This, however, was May 11, which is our day of days. And it was May 11, which implies, you know, spring. This invitation — I didn’t even have to sell the complimentary pink cap angle — would not be demurred upon. It was accepted, graciously.

But boy was it windy. Not Wall of Voodoo hot wind on my shoulder windy either. This was hot dog wrapper, cotton candy bag, Pat Leahy considering a change of career wind. It roared in from Flushing Bay, swirled around an inbound Delta, bounced off the chop shops, laughed its way through Citi Field, skipped over the outfield fence, blew with strength up the middle, over Beltran, between Reyes and Castillo, shooting up Schneider’s goalie mask and landing in the mezzanine like a javelin.

The wind never stopped. At most it paused. It wasn’t the toughest wind I ever faced down (the 13-1 gale two Wednesdays ago seemed, like the Pirates, more punishing), but it was plenty petulant. Throw in a graveyard cough I’ve been hacking around for a couple of days and you wouldn’t have known you were sitting in the park one day in the merry, merry month of May.

Yet so what? It’s a Mets game. It’s Shea Stadium. It’s windy. It’s always windy half the time, as some skipper or another might have put it. I’m hardy. I’m battle-tested. I can take it.

But I was in these elements in a different element Sunday. Stephanie was with me and, no matter how rugged she is in many ways, her fan-by-marriage contract does not include a stiff and steady third-and-long breeze, not on the eleventh of frigging May for god’s sake. She was bundled some (trenchcoat with hood and lining, both gloves on), but not quite enough. To be bundled quite enough for Sunday, she would have had to have been in waiting on the 6:41 to Penn Station in January mode. And unless there’s a Fall Classic in progress, no sane person should have to sit at a baseball game in those conditions.

But ya know what? She never complained about it.

Twenty-one years minus four days since our first chilly evening in Flushing, she’d never begged out of Shea, save for a rainy Saturday in 1999 when my six innings of gallant umbrella-holding couldn’t convince her that it wasn’t so bad (the umbrella was shaped like a baseball cap and the effect was to form a rain gutter that drizzled onto her shoulder). She didn’t today either. She took pictures and noted the bizarre posting on the scoreboard of each player’s mom’s name in italics — “like it’s supposed to be an insult that Luis Castillo’s mother is named Faustina” — and respectfully applauded Ken Griffey and laughed when I called for Ryan “to take these people to” Church (inside joke) and rose more than once for Carlos Beltran and delighted in everything Oliver Perez did on the mound, at the plate and along the basepaths.

But she never said I’m cold, I want to go.

So I did.

It was in the bottom of the fifth, an official game already, the ballyhooed Johnny Quest having proven not up to any great adventure, Carlos and Ryan having gone deep, Junior not making any kind of history, Ollie not having heard me think that if Jim Bunning was going to pitch a perfect game on Shea’s first Father’s Day that he would pitch at least a no-hitter on its last Mother’s Day.

“After this half-inning is over,” I said, “Griffey’s gonna lead off the sixth. After he bats, ya wanna get out of here?”

“You mean ‘get out’ get out?”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t have to go.”

“It’s freezing. You’re freezing.”

“I was thinking we could walk around and warm up.”

“We could just go.”

“No. We don’t have to do that.”

“The Mets are up 6-0. I’ve seen two home runs. I’ve seen Ollie Perez throw one-hit ball. It’s not going to get any better. In fact, if this game has an exciting conclusion, I’m going to be pretty disgusted.”

“We’ll walk around and warm up. We don’t have to go.”

“It’s not like I’m going to be disappointed if we do.”

The Reds were changing pitchers. C’mon, I said, this would be as good a time as any to at least walk around and warm up. We went to our respective restrooms and re-emerged for that stroll that was going to raise our temperatures (pausing to watch Griffey walk on a blurry monitor; it’s not like I set my watch by what he does, but it occurred to me this was likely my last in-house look at him). As we wound from third base side to first base side to right field, a ramp beckoned. I reiterated my highly unusual offer, an offer so unusual that if I were a Toyota salesman, I’d have to go check with my manager before making it.

“We can go. We can make the 3:24 at Woodside even.”

There. I threw a train time on the table. I was serious. Yet she was seriously demurring. Either 21 years of exposure to me had created a monster fan I had somehow never noticed or she didn’t want to take me away from my beloved team and my beloved stadium because she is too thoughtful toward me for her own good.

Finally, she said OK and we hit the ramp. An instant later, however, a big Shea groan went up. From the radio, already plugged into my right ear, I relayed that Ollie just threw a wild pitch, now it was 6-3.

“Well, we’ve got to go back,” she said. She didn’t mean home. She meant to our seats. It was 6-0 when we got up, now it was 6-3. How could we leave when we had already taken half the lead with us? We have to go save the Mets from themselves.

It was momentarily tempting to stay. Stephanie had already turned in the general direction of our section. It wasn’t going to get any warmer, but how much colder could it get? And if we left and the Reds chipped away any further and what’s a few innings when there are so few innings left in the life of Shea Stadium?

But I reconsidered reconsideration. “No, let’s go,” I said and, at last, insisted (neither one of us is insistent by nature, so when one of us insists, it gets noticed). I remembered why I’d suggested the early exit. Stephanie was cold on my account. I could miss an hour of Mets on hers.

It wasn’t exactly “The Gift of the Magi,” but we did make the 3:24 with minutes to spare. The batting-out-of-order caper revealed itself in the car and was still in progress as I turned on the living room TV. It reportedly took twelve minutes to sort out. I can’t imagine either one of us would have been enriched by shivering through the dispute and being pushed back to the 4:49, probably the 5:24.

Stephanie and I will be at Shea together in July for a concert. And we’ll return on September 28, a Sunday afternoon when I’ve already warned my wife of 16-1/2 years, my love of 21 years, that we won’t be leaving early, no matter the weather (“not even to beat the rush?” she deadpanned). Maybe I’ll get her to un-demur for a less momentous game between now and then, which would be wonderful. Maybe not, in which case I’ll have a good time and tell her about it later.

Not long after poking fun at the Mets for entering the brick business, my sister and brother-in-law, not regular readers of this blog, generously gave me for my birthday…a brick. Yes, I who have sniffed at and scoffed at Citi Field will be a “permanent part” of it after all. Technically, I was given a brick certificate. It was up to me to fill in the inscription. I struggled with it for months. Didn’t like anything I came up with. As an afterthought, I asked Stephanie, “you wanna be a part of this?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Really?”

“Sure!”

I submitted the inscription last week:

OUR FIRST DATEMETS 8 GIANTS 3

MAY 15, 1987

She may make only cameo appearances at Shea Stadium in the course of a season and she may understand the nuances and niceties of baseball strategy just marginally better than does Dusty Baker, but my wife takes our three-way marriage to heart, in her way, every bit as much as I do. I am continually grateful to be reminded of her devotion to the Mets via me and grow more elated daily that 21 years since it began my winning streak remains intact.

This post has been updated to reflect that it was indeed Patterson, not Freel, who tried to bat after Ross. Original post is in strikethrough below that, lest anyone think I'm pulling a fast one.

When a team bats out of order, my first instinct is to grin at the novelty of it. My second instinct is to hide behind the couch. Because this is the string theory of baseball rules — I bet Bobby Valentine and Jayson Stark understand it, but beyond them you can count the number of people on Earth who do on the fingers of that one hand you let get a little too close to the combine that unfortunate summer on the farm.

Oh, and the late Leonard Koppett understood it, too. Which is why, when a team bats out of order, I go for Koppett's The New Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball (earlier editions are without the New). Starting on page 364 you'll find the only sane explanation of how this works that I've ever read.

The key point, as set down by Koppett: The correct batter, at any moment, is the one listed immediately after the last who completed a legal turn at bat. That's it. No exceptions.

Two secondary but critical points: “Legal” has nothing to with what number “hole” was supposed to bat. And once the team in the field pitches to a hitter, throws to a base, etc., anything done before becomes legal. It gets a bit crazy, but the spirit of the thing is that an out-of-order penalty begins and ends with a single batter, instead of having penalties stack up and result in a cascade of outs.

So. Jeff Keppinger made the final out of the 8th (K'd by Joe Smith in a confrontation that I hope sends Jorge Sosa to Never-Never Land once a roster move must be made). After Keppinger the correct hitter was Corey Patterson, occupying the spot initially occupied by Paul Bako, then kept warm by Jared Burton (a contender for the Spiezio Award for dopey-looking facial hair) and Jeremy Affeldt before it became his. Patterson's job, as far as the rules are concerned, was to hit after Keppinger. David Ross had entered the game along with Burton in the bottom of the 6th. His job was to hit after Burton — who, through substitutions, became Affeldt and then Patterson. So the correct bottom of the order for the Reds evolved from Keppinger/Bako/Cueto (beginning of the game) to Keppinger/Bako/Bray (bottom of the 5th), then Keppinger/Burton/Ross (bottom of the 6th), then Keppinger/Affeldt/Ross (bottom of the 7th), then Keppinger/Patterson/Ross (bottom of the 8th). Confusing, but the screwup was Ross's — he should have known that whomever he followed in the batting order, it wasn't Keppinger.

So here's the rub. When Ross flied out in the spot that rightly belonged to Patterson, it didn't mean anything immediately. (In fact, the umpire isn't allowed to point out that a team has hit out of order. And if the Reds had realized their mistake during Ross's at-bat, they could have sent Patterson up to inherit the count without penalty.) When the Mets protested before throwing a pitch to Patterson, Patterson was out and Ross was the correct hitter again (Patterson having completed a legal turn at-bat, admittedly of a decidedly odd nature), again with one out in the ninth. (Oh, and Ross's flyout? Never happened — it's the Armin Tanzarian of at-bats.)

Where it gets goofy is that it was Patterson, not Ryan Freel, who tried to bat after Ross — meaning the Reds were probably never going to figure out what had gone wrong. And that's where the Mets missed an opportunity — not to automatically record a second out (that's not possible), but to effectively invoke one if needed. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one.

If Feliciano had then thrown a pitch to Patterson, Ross's at-bat would have been legalized — there'd have been one out in the ninth, on the now-official flyout. If the Reds had merely skipped over Patterson and Freel was at the plate, that would have been the end of it. But Patterson was at the plate in the spot that belonged to Freel. If Willie had protested after a pitch to Patterson, as he seemed to think he should have after the game, he would have gained nothing — Ross's out would have stood and Freel would have been sent up to hit, inheriting Patterson's count. (In fact, I'd rather face Ross, Ross and Freel than Ross, Freel and Votto.)

So what it seems Willie should have done — and it's not fair to criticize him for not doing so, since this is so insane — is note the Reds' mistake and keep quiet. He would have had a free out to play with until the Reds figured out what had happened, which they probably wouldn't have done.

Ross has made the first out, hitting when Patterson was supposed to hit. One way or another — a Ross flyout or a Patterson putout by catcher — you've got that out and it's not going away. Once you pitch to Patterson, the Ross AB is legalized and the flyout stands. If Patterson then completed the at-bat and reached base, the Mets could have brought the mistake to the ump's attention, Freel would have been called out (he's supposed to hit after the now-legal Ross) and the Mets would have faced Votto with two away and everything settled.

If Patterson had completed the AB and made an out, the Mets could have stayed quiet and faced Freel with two away. Once a pitch was thrown to Freel, Patterson's AB would have been legalized — which would mean Freel was improperly hitting in Ross's spot. If Freel had made an out, the game would have been over and maybe nobody would have noticed.

OK, but there's one wrinkle left. If Freel had reached base, the Mets could have appealed before a pitch to Votto. Ross would have been called out (again, he hits after Patterson) and the game would have ended on a batting out-of-order appeal, with Ross somehow making two outs (flyout and putout by catcher for batting out of order) in an inning that only saw three official ABs. In which case we would have never stopped talking about this game. Ever.

(And if I've got that wrong, I promise there will be no further update. Because I'm already losing my mind about this one.)

Oh, and by the way: I've said some hard things about Willie Randolph in the last week, but let's compare him to Dusty Baker. The Reds have committed to three years of paying a manager who can't even get his players to bat in the correct order. Be strong, Cincinnati — 2010 is coming, but not quickly enough.

Old post below, when I gave the Reds too much credit and thought Freel was trying to hit after Ross:

When a team bats out of order, my first instinct is to grin at the novelty of it. My second instinct is to hide behind the couch. Because this is the string theory of baseball rules — I bet Bobby Valentine and Jayson Stark understand it, but beyond them you can count the number of people on Earth who do on the fingers of that one hand you let get a little too close to the combine that unfortunate summer on the farm.

Oh, and the late Leonard Koppett understood it, too. Which is why, when a team bats out of order, I go for Koppett's The New Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball (earlier editions are without the New). Starting on page 364 you'll find the only sane explanation of how this works that I've ever read.

The key point, as set down by Koppett: The correct batter, at any moment, is the one listed immediately after the last who completed a legal turn at bat. That's it. No exceptions.

Two secondary but critical points: “Legal” has nothing to with what number “hole” was supposed to bat. And once the team in the field pitches to a hitter, throws to a base, etc., anything done before becomes legal.

So. Jeff Keppinger made the final out of the 8th (K'd by Joe Smith in a confrontation that I hope sends Jorge Sosa to Never-Never Land once a roster move must be made). After Keppinger the correct hitter was Corey Patterson, occupying the spot initially occupied by Paul Bako, then kept warm by Jared Burton (a contender for the Spiezio Award for dopey-looking facial hair) and Jeremy Affeldt before it became his. Patterson's job, as far as the rules are concerned, was to hit after Keppinger. David Ross had entered the game along with Burton in the bottom of the 6th. His job was to hit after Burton — who, through substitutions, became Affeldt and then Patterson. So the correct bottom of the order for the Reds evolved from Keppinger/Bako/Cueto (beginning of the game) to Keppinger/Bako/Bray (bottom of the 5th), then Keppinger/Burton/Ross (bottom of the 6th), then Keppinger/Affeldt/Ross (bottom of the 7th), then Keppinger/Patterson/Ross (bottom of the 8th). What I gather happened to the Reds was that when David Weathers and Patterson came in in the 8th, they got confused about who was hitting sixth and who was hitting eighth. How the answer became “neither of us” is one for those two gentlemen and Dusty Baker to explain. Ross, for his part, should have known that whomever he followed in the batting order, it wasn't Keppinger.

So here's the rub. When Ross flied out in the spot that rightly belonged to Patterson, it didn't mean anything immediately. (In fact, the umpire isn't allowed to point out that a team has hit out of order. And if the Reds had realized their mistake during Ross's at-bat, they could have sent Patterson up to inherit the count without penalty.) If Feliciano had then thrown a pitch to Ryan Freel, Ross's at-bat would have been legalized — one out in the ninth, Freel up. When Willie protested before that point, Patterson was out and Ross was the correct hitter again (Patterson having completed a legal turn at-bat, admittedly of a decidedly odd nature), again with one out in the ninth. (Oh, and Ross's flyout? Never happened — it's the Armin Tanzarian of at-bats.)

If I followed the top of the ninth properly and am interpreting Koppett correctly (and if I'm not on either score, my fault), there was no advantage to waiting for something else to happen. Ross's at-bat would have been legal once a pitch was thrown to Freel, and the Reds would only have faced rules jeopardy if someone other than Joey Votto had followed Freel. (Which is by no means impossible, considering the above.) In fact, the Mets got the best situation possible: You'd rather face Ross, Ross and Freel (what happened) than Patterson, Ross and Freel (what should have happened) or Ross, Freel and Votto (what would have happened if Willie had made no protest).

The key to the rule is that out-of-order penalties begin and end with a single batter, instead of stacking up and resulting in a cascade of outs. Which, considering how long it took to sort out this afternoon's mess, is a blessing — if Willie had come out after a first pitch to Freel, in hopes of somehow getting two outs, the Mets and Reds and the umpires might still be out there.

Oh, and by the way: I've said some hard things about Willie Randolph in the last week, but let's compare him to Dusty Baker. The Reds have committed to three years of paying a manager who can't even get his players to bat in the correct order. Be strong, Cincinnati — 2010 is coming, but not quickly enough.

The more Gary and Keith patted Mike Pelfrey on the back and/or the head tonight — and the more their sentiments were echoed by Willie's commendation of Pelfrey's “baby steps” in the postgame gaggle — the more I recalled Dana Carvey doing his impression of the first George Bush, specifically when the 41st president would praise Dan Quayle for “still gaining acceptance” as his perpetually underdone VP.

It wouldn't be prudent to pick on Pelfrey, for he authored the 2008 Mets equivalent of a masterpiece in the night half of the Saturday doubleheader: six innings, 106 pitches, two runs. It was encouraging that he squirmed out of trouble in the first (on the radio, Wayne and Eddie noted Ramon Castro darted to the mound to talk him through his troubles, an area where Raul Casanova hadn't been asserting himself) and that he settled into an effective enough groove against a hot-hitting lineup that sure knows how to work counts. This loss was not Pelfrey's by any means. The win, despite the unraveling that sucked the competitive air out of the eighth and ninth, was all Arroyo's. He mastered the Mets, and not for the first time.

Pelfrey, though…is it impatient to note that Mike Pelfrey just started his 23rd Major League game and we're still supposed to be beside ourselves with joy that he made it through six innings and pitched well enough to win? Perhaps if all 23 starts had come in the same rookie year — last Met rookie to start 30 games in one season was Jae Seo in 2003; before him, Doc and Darling in 1984 — I could recognize genuine progress. Even if we accept that this is not just the third season in which he's pitched in the bigs, but the third season in which he's pitched in the pros, it still seems like slow going, especially considering the next time he throws six or more innings in two consecutive starts uninterrupted by a minor league stint will be his first. Every start seems to be a fresh one for Pelfrey. He's learning to pitch with his tongue out. Or in. Or with a mouthpiece. Or without. Or to Schneider. Or to Casanova. Or to Castro. Or with something resembling confidence. And aren't college pitchers supposed to come along quickly?

I admit I'm historically spoiled when it comes to fastballing righties and accelerated learning curves. Tom Seaver did a one-year hitch in Jacksonville and then, at 22, turned into the Franchise. Dwight Gooden was barely two years out of Hillsborough High when he was making National Leaguers look like sophomores at Chamberlain, Plant and King. It took Jae Seo a while, but Jae Seo wasn't the Mets' No. 1 draft pick, Jae Seo wasn't the third pitcher chosen overall and Jae Seo wasn't 6'-7″. Jae Seo wasn't supposed to be the first homegrown Met ace since…geez, when did the last homegrown ace actually sprout here?

Does it matter? Santana from Minnesota is obviously the man and Maine from Baltimore was kidnapped young and Pedro, citizen of the world, will maybe be Pedroesque from June on, though you'd be nuts to count on it. If Pelfrey can keep giving the Mets six competent innings, and if the Mets don't face Bronson Arroyo too often, won't that be enough? Even with the bullpen working three innings almost every night — sure would be sweet if Ollie could limit their load Sunday — won't that be reasonable to accept at this stage of the kid's career?

It is only 23 starts and he is only 24.

For all I know my son may grow up to be president, a beloved philanthropist, or a Hollywood star. But as I told Greg a couple of weeks ago, in a tone of voice a bit less guilty than it probably should have been, I don't think I could be prouder of him than I've been when he knows 2-2 is a neutral count, or that that ball up the gap was a two-run double, or other foundation blocks of baseball knowledge. Being a dad is pretty great most all the time, but it's particularly fun when I get to pass along some lessons about the game I love.

And it's even better when baseball cooperates.

Today was one of those typical weekend days when baseball was the counterpart to a flurry of household activities — by the middle innings of Game 1, we had three TVs on and two radios playing. (Remember the ad a couple of years back with that guy watching soccer on TVs everywhere in the house? Obviously the ad was pointing out how smart and prepared that guy was. Right?) Joshua had cheered on Santana faithfully, and Emily had pointed out that Johan (typically pronounced “Yo-ho” by Joshua) didn't have his best stuff, but sometimes you learned more about a pitcher then than you did when all his pitches were working — witness Johan today vs., say, Oliver Perez recently. (In our house, fathers have no monopoly on baseball lessons.)

In the bottom of the 6th, Joshua thought the game pretty well in hand with the Mets up 6-3, runners on second and third and one out with Jose Reyes at the plate. I pointed out this was the time that good teams really bear down — that a three-run lead in the 6th can get pecked away to a one-run lead in the 8th before you know it, leaving you a bad relief outing away from disaster. Joshua was a bit puzzled when Mom and Dad weren't thrilled to see Reyes draw a walk. Luis Castillo, we explained, doesn't have enough power to be a reliable source of sacrifice flies (in fact, in 1,431 big-league games he has a ludicrous 17 of them), meaning if he didn't get the job done, the Mets could easily be turned aside on a double play or needing a hit to get that extra run. Good teams convert here, was the lesson. They tack on runs instead of giving their opponents a chance to get back into the game.

Joshua knows a 2-1 pitch is a hitter's count — and we all watched Castillo get a meatball on 2-1 and foul it back, causing consternation in the Bernstein-Fry household. The kid found that a bit unfair. That was the best pitch he was likely to see, we explained — and sure enough, Mike Lincoln fanned him on a called third strike. Which left it to David Wright, searching for a two-out hit. Lincoln went to 3-0 on Wright, and I counseled Joshua (by now paying pretty good attention for a five-year-old) that Wright should be selective, that he had three good pitches to work with and no need to be overanxious. Lincoln's next pitch was a strike, but one on the inside edge of the plate, which David would have rolled out to the shortstop if he'd offered at. Nicely done. Lincoln's next pitch was a ball, forcing in a run. Good at-bat for Wright.

But here came the real lesson: Beltran up to the plate. Bases loaded, two out. Now, I told Joshua, Beltran should look for a strike on that first pitch, and hit it hard if it proved to his liking. I know most all of us know this, but remember the kid is five — it's a bit puzzling how one hitter should be selective but the next hitter should be aggressive. Lincoln went to 2-1 on Castillo and walked in a run against Wright, I explained. He's going to want to get ahead of Beltran really badly — so badly that he may well be too concerned with throwing a strike, and not concerned enough with making a good pitch.

Well, you know the rest. Beltran nailed Lincoln's first pitch for a bases-clearing triple. 10-3 Mets, and for a moment Joshua was persuaded that his father wasn't, in fact, a complete idiot.

Someday it won't be that big a deal that Johan Santana won a home start for the New York Mets. Today it kind of was.

The matter was never in much doubt, but Johan stretched Shea's patience just the tiniest bit there in the sixth as he couldn't quite close the Reds out for the longest time. How long? Thirty-four pitches long. Felt longer.

Who's counting? Well, I just did, with ESPN's help. I only noticed because Johan has yet to lay down one of those Santana masterpieces like the one he dropped off at Shea as a visitor last June (of which we saw the highlights every single day throughout the winter) and, somehow, had not earned a victory here as a Met. I also noticed because as the end of his day approached, the Mets' conclusion was nowhere in sight. In the afternoon portion of a day-night doubleheader, you love that you've got your ace going in the opener. You'd love it more if he could give you seven, eight or — dare we ask for it? — nine innings.

Johan gritted his teeth and got through six. A win is a win (we say that a lot lately) for the team and for the pitcher, but on a minimum 18-inning day, with Mike Pelfrey starting and doing who knows what in a few hours, it would have been swell…sweller…had Santana breezed through the Reds.

So he didn't. So it took ten pitches to strike out David Ross and six more to fan Corey Patterson. By then nobody thought Johan was coming back for the seventh. By then it was an achievement to save the bullpen in the sixth. And he did. And he won. So good for Johan.

Very good for Carlos Beltran in Game One, too. Perhaps Carlos B. has earned enough equity with the ticketed insta-critics so that he has escaped the sort of unconstructive feedback that has fallen on the heads of several of his teammates. Maybe the fans who are quick to boo Delgado and Heilman (and Schoeneweis and Castillo) remember Carlos Beltran was as big a get in 2005 as Johan Santana is in 2008 and are cutting him the slack now that they didn't then. Maybe they remember that the Carlos Beltran of 2006 was MVP-caliber and the 2007 version rode himself hard to the very end. But Carlos Beltran was batting .218 coming into today's first game. Carlos Beltran was having as bad a season as Carlos Delgado.

He's not having a bad season anymore. He looks a great deal like the original zillion-dollar signee and he's playing like he's determined to stay on everybody's good side. A dozen points have been added to his average since this morning and five steaks have been tossed onto his RBI pile. Everybody hit, but Beltran belted. Made a real nice catch as well. Beltran, like Santana, never had a Shea honeymoon, but he's having a pretty placid marriage. May he and Johan continue to make themselves at home.