Whew!
The series is even, and no matter what happens, the Mets are coming back to New York alive.
You saw it. We all saw it. Really, this rebound began last night, when Darren Oliver saved the bullpen from having to put in overtime. It continued tonight, with the other Oliver (young Mr. Perez) pitching bravely and effectively. Never mind his numbers, which got a little blemished late as he was trading potential runs for outs — he did exactly what we needed him to do, exactly what Steve Trachsel was utterly incapable of doing, and now things are different.
Did the worm turn tonight? Only the baseball gods can say. But diving into baseball phrenology, it should be noted that since the seventh inning of Game 2 the Cardinals have most certainly had The Look — big hits from the guys you tend to look past (Encarnacion, Spiezio and Molina), homers from unlikely sources (Taguchi and Eckstein), pitchers hitting homers, young relievers coming up big, two-run triples everywhere, and lots of balls eluding Met gloves by inches (Green in Game 2, Green and Chavez in Game 3, Beltran and Wright early tonight).
But tonight was different: Those young relievers weren't so good and the Cards' fielding fell apart. And, of course, the Met bats erupted. This was no “save some of that for tomorrow night” — this was wanting hitting to get contagious, for everyone in the lineup to leave with a knock, for all concerned to freaking relax already. Mission accomplished — the nicest sight for me wasn't Jose Valentin's casket-closing double, but the way he raised his fist and grinned afterwards. When the Mets took the field, the wolf was at the door. Three and a half hours later, he'd fled into the woods yelping that the monsters were out of the cage.
Now, time to keep the furry little blighter there.
My fondest hope for tomorrow night? It has nothing to do with baseball. It's that we spend tomorrow watching “Prison Break” or “Justice” or whatever it is Fox has as a backup plan. (I'd be catching up with “The Wire” on TiVo, but you get the idea.) The weather report for Monday night is apocalyptic, and that's just fine with me. If it rains, Glavine pitches Tuesday night on normal rest. Same for Jeff Weaver, but short rest is more dangerous for a touch-and-feel guy like Glavine than for a winger-flinger like Weaver.
After that? Well — and this is a case where you do need to look ahead — if Glavine prevails in Game 5 (on normal rest or not), the Cardinals need Carpenter to beat Maine and Suppan to beat [Oliver or Oliver or Trachsel] at Shea. If Game 5 goes to St. Louis, we need our rotation's soft underbelly to put together two good games against the Cardinals' ace and a guy who shut us down Saturday. Or for the hopefully still-uncaged monsters to run wild, eating wolves and birds and anything else that gets within reach, of course. But solid pitching from unexpected sources would sure help, and that could well be too much to ask down 3-2, Shea or no Shea.
Funny thing, hoping to spend Monday night doing whatever the hell I do when there isn't baseball.

“Why so glum, Greg?”
“Isn't it obvious? The Mets have lost two of three to the Cardinals.”
“We did that lots. Lost two out of three to a whole bunch of teams.”
“I don't think you understand, 2003.”
“What don't I understand? Your Mets are losing and you're depressed. I know how you get.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“Well, we're getting lousy starting pitching.”
“Yeah? Who took the loss last night?”
“Trachsel.”
“I had him.”
“We're not hitting.”
“I know that feeling.”
“Injuries…Floyd's Achilles, for example.”
“He's still not over that?”
“2003, it's not the same thing.”
“It's not?”
“No! Do you have any idea who we're pitching tonight?”
“Jason Roach?”
“No.”
“Jeremy Griffiths?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Oliver Perez.”
“Who?”
“Exactly.”
“That's tough, Greg. Doesn't sound like your 2006 Mets are doing very well. What a shame that they haven't come very far in three years.”
“Well, I wouldn't say that.”
“What is it — the middle of June? You're 15, 18 games behind the Braves? Expos coming to town next? Fran Healy doing the game?”
“It's not like that at all, 2003. We're in the playoffs.”
“You're kidding.”
“No, really.”
“So they expanded the Wild Card to include everybody?”
“No. In fact, we won the division.”
“You're shitting me.”
“I am not. Here, look at the standings.”
“Holy crap! The Mets won 97 games!”
“Yeah. Looked like it was going to be more than a hundred, but September didn't go so well and…”
“Holy crap! The Mets won 97 games!”
“Uh-huh. I was trying to say that it could have been more, except…”
“Holy crap! The Mets won 97 games!”
“You keep saying that.”
“Greg, we won 66 games in 2003.”
“I remember.”
“You do? Do you really?”
“Of course. It was only three years ago.”
“Then why are you acting like such a ungrateful bastard?”
“Hey, I resent that. I'm constantly writing nice things about the Mets on my blog.”
“Listen, I don't know what that is, but I can hear it in your voice that you have no idea how good you've got it.”
“We're down in the National League Championship Series and if we lose tonight, we're one game from elimination.”
“Greg, get ahold of yourself. In 2003, we weren't anywhere near the National League Championship Series.”
“I guess.”
“You GUESS? Are you out of your mind? We won 66 fucking games! We were out of it by the end of April!”
“That was a long time ago, 2003.”
“No, it wasn't. It was three years. We were hopelessly lousy three years ago and you're in the playoffs three years later and you're muttering about the Cardinals and one-game deficits and unproven starting pitchers?”
“Expectations change, 2003. It's a different perspective when you're here.”
“Look Greg, I haven't been around in a while, so maybe I better ask you a few more questions.”
“OK.”
“Where are the Braves?”
“Home.”
“Where are the Yankees?”
“Home.”
“Where are the Mets?”
“In the NLCS.”
“Isn't this what you waited for?”
“Yes.”
“Let me ask you something else: What were you doing in late August three years ago?”
“Uh…”
“Don't screw with me. Tell me what you were doing.”
“I was looking at the standings…”
“And?”
“And I was figuring out if there was any way we could make a run at the Wild Card. You saw that?”
“Greg, there wasn't much else for me to do. We sucked! But I remember you sitting there with the paper, us finally having had a couple of decent weeks in late summer…”
“We were only 10-1/2 back! If we could get on a roll…”
“See?”
“See what?”
“You would have KILLED to have been in the spot you and the Mets are now. You would have run through the rain in nothing but your Jason Phillips t-shirt to be down one game in a best-of-seven series.”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose right.”
“None of that really helps right now.”
“Well, let me ask you about the 2006 team. Is it good?”
“I thought we were. After we swept the Dodgers in the NLDS…”
“Wait. The Mets swept the Dodgers?”
“Yeah.”
“In the first round?”
“Yeah.”
“So now you're panicking because it's the second round and they're down 2-1?”
“Um, when you put it that way…”
“Geez. Tell me about this team. Did Reyes ever recover from the hamstring problems?”
“Oh he's fine. Led the league in steals and triples the last two years. Hit 19 homers, too.”
“I'm so happy to hear that!”
“He even has his own song when he comes to bat. I mean everybody sings it.”
“You're kidding. The only thing we had like that was 'Hold On' by Wilson Phillips for Wilson and Phillips. And nobody sung along.”
“This isn't like that.”
“Anybody else from those kids in 2003? What about Aaron Heilman? We gave him a bunch of starts then.”
“He's a reliever now. Pretty good one. Sets up Billy Wagner.”
“So Aaron was traded to Houston?”
“No, he sets up Billy Wagner for us.”
“We have Billy Wagner?”
“Yeah. Signed him around the same time we got Carlos Delgado.”
“WE HAVE CARLOS DELGADO? The slugger from the Blue Jays?”
“Sure.”
“Wow. No wonder you're in the playoffs. I know you said there isn't much pitching, but with the kind of talent you're describing, there must be enough. Kazmir really blossomed, huh?”
“In a manner of speaking. The key was going out and getting Pedro Martinez.”
“PEDRO MARTINEZ IS ON THE METS?”
“Yeah. Free agent a couple of winters ago.”
“Wow. I didn't know Jim Duquette had it in him. That's pretty bold. And you don't have enough pitching?”
“He's hurt is the problem.”
“I see. But surely the Duke replaced Tom Glavine with somebody young and reliable by now.”
“Glavine's still here.”
“My condolences.”
“No, 2003. Glavine stuck it out and turned it around and he's pitching great, just like he was supposed to.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Boy, Greg, you and the 2006 Mets are on quite a roll.”
“Could be better, though. Wright hasn't hit with much power since he was in the All-Star Game.”
“Who?”
“Wright. David Wright.”
“The kid in Single-A three years ago?”
“That's right.”
“The third baseman?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He actually made the big leagues and became an All-Star?”
“Sure.”
“What do you mean 'sure'? Met third base prospects never do that!”
“This one did.”
“So what did they do with Ty Wigginton? Convert him to a centerfielder?”
“No, Wiggy was traded a while go. And Carlos Beltran plays center.”
“CARLOS BELTRAN? That stud from the Royals?”
“Yeah. We signed him right after Pedro Martinez.”
“Greg, you have to stop complaining at once. Do you realize what a team you've got there?”
“I get it, 2003. I get that this is way more successful than I could have hoped three short years ago, but to come this close and maybe not win would be so disappointing.”
“More disappointing than 66-95? More disappointing than Orber Moreno and Mike Glavine and Jason Middlebrook and Jay Bell and Jeff Duncan and Jorge Velandia? More disappointing than Al Leiter and John Franco lobbying a broken down David Cone into the rotation? More disappointing than Mo Vaughn on the DL and collecting huge checks? More disappointing than Rey Sanchez giving Armando Benitez a haircut during a game? More disappointing than Roger Cedeño chasing fly balls from left to right even though he was in center? More disappointing than shoving Mike Piazza to first base…say, is Mike still there?”
“No, he moved on. Lo Duca's the catcher now.”
“Paul Lo Duca? From the Dodgers?”
“Yup.”
“That's not a bad replacement.”
“No, it's not.”
“The point is, Greg, three years ago you never would have dreamed you'd have a team like this or get even this far. I know you want to go as far as you can, as far as Art Howe can manage…”
“Uh, 2003…”
“What?”
“Art Howe's not the manager anymore.”
“What are you talking about? He signed a four-year deal four years ago, and I know the Wilpons wouldn't just pay him not to manage.”
“They did. They got rid of him after 2004.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“Who's the manager?”
“Willie Randolph.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“He any good?”
“He's not Art Howe.”
“Well, there ya go! You've got it goin' on, you and the Mets. You couldn't have been much lower in 2003 and now you're near the top of the world. So, c'mon! Buck up! If you guys could win 97 games, a division title, sweep a division series and be in the NLCS, then surely you gotta believe you can do a little more.”
“You know what, 2003? Talking to you has really cheered me up. You've given me some much-needed perspective. If we can go from last to first in three years, from laughingstock to pennant finalist, from hopeless to oh so close, then why not feel good today?”
“Why not indeed, Greg. I may not be completely up to date, but I'm 2003 and I know what I know. So keep believing.”
“I will.”
“Things can always be worse.”
“I understand.”
“After all, we may have won only 66 games, but think about those poor Detroit Tigers. They went 43-119 three years ago. I'll bet they're not playing in any League Championship Series tonight!”
“Right again, 2003. Right again.”

Thank goodness for Steve Trachsel. By removing suspense early, he kept most of the bullpen fresh.
If there is any Met good to derive from Game Three of the 2006 National League Championship Series — and nothing tangible leaps to mind — it is that those of us who have bothered to attempt to fashion a modicum of respect for a pitcher who has been more frustrating than rewarding for six years…who have if not defended him then rationalized him…who have squeezed every drop of benefit from the ton of doubt he represents…well, we can stop now.
Steve Trachsel sucks. End of story. May he live a long and happy life somewhere else and not take up flying. Bon voy-ah-jee, uh-reev-a-doy-chee, get out of St. Louie screwy.
If it were all Trachsel's fault, the prescription would be an easy one to swallow: Hey Willie, don't start Trachsel ever again and we're golden! Ah, but that is to ignore that if Trachsel had hypothetically thrown a Trachselian gem — five innings, four runs, one self-satisfied smirk — we still failed to stick even a teaspoon in Jeff Suppan. Except for token, apparitional appearances, we saw no Met offense, the entity that was supposed to bash us toward a pennant. Remember how we were going to ride one starter, five relievers and eight bats to the World Series and disprove a century of wisdom that pitching is 75 percent of baseball as some old Joe Morgan wives' tale?
Sounds great. Let me know if it works against a good team.
After the 5-0 loss, the lamest October effort this franchise has put forth since Gregg Jefferies was a growth stock, the Metsian analysis on SNY pushed hard the angle that Darren Oliver saved our bacon, glossing over the inconvenient fact that the pig was out of the barn by the second inning (and that our lineup couldn't be bothered to chase it more than a couple of steps). Oliver indeed threw six innings, allowing no earned runs of his own and only two of the three Trachsel bequeathed him. The real value of his outing was it got the Cardinals into the potentially bad habit of swinging bored. They understood intrinsically that if the Mets weren't going to bother trying to score, why should they?
OK, so Bradford, Feliciano, Mota, Heilman and Wagner got to take the night off (as did David Wright…again). That will be of immense help if the Mets are in a tight one come the sixth inning tonight, worth no more than a footnote if Oliver Perez doesn't give them five. There is every reason to project Oliver Perez won't give them five. Oliver Perez hasn't pitched in two weeks. Oliver Perez wasn't supposed to be a part of this right now. Oliver Perez went 3-13 in 2006 with an ERA tilting to 7.
If Oliver Perez is a clever nom de plume for Tom Glavine, then I like our chances. If not, hoo-boy.
To muster faith rather than fear about it, the kid did have a pretty solid 2004 — but so did John Kerry. Perez's prospects for Game Four haven't been mentioned without a qualifier that he's got great stuff, that we've seen some mighty promising moments out of him, that he stymied the Braves in September. All of that is baseball code for we expect Pujols, Spiezio and their thuggish cohort to cream him like wheat. Nobody in their right mind would start Oliver Perez in a must-win postseason situation unless they lost Pedro Martinez, Orlando Hernandez and Dave Williams to various combinations of injury and roster miscalculation. It is not unreasonable to believe Oliver Perez can give the Mets the five innings minimum that they need to survive. It is folly to count on it.
Our last best hope lies in Anthony Reyes, the Cardinal version of Oliver Perez. He's not experienced, he's not reliable and, bless the beasts and the children, he's not lefthanded. If the Carloses, the Joses, The David and the rest can't lay wood to this fine fellow, then it really is off to never never land.
WAKE UP!

A royal blue t-shirt that says Amazins. A navy blue sweatshirt that says NEW YORK METS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. A bright orange hoodie that says NEW YORK. A blue satin jacket that says Mets. A dark green parka just in case.
And that was above the waist.
I was ready for the worst. They said it would be cold and I believed them. As a bona fide veteran of postseason sitting, I learned in 2000 preparation is key. I wasn't going to be caught off guard.
The only thing I wasn't ready for was a loss. There have been so few.
Who remembers the last time the Mets lost before Friday night? It was in another month, another season, with another couple of pitchers still prominent in their plans. Besides the paucity of losses there was the lack of severity surrounding them. You have to go back to Shea Stadium being genuinely frigid on April 5 to find the previous time when a Met loss — the second game of 2006 — carried more than symbolic significance.
That was the night Ryan Zimmerman reached Billy Wagner and the left field stratosphere in rapid succession. How long ago was it? Jorge Julio took the loss. How important was it? It knocked the Mets out of first place…for 24 hours. They recovered and, though we would be intermittently irritated on 64 more occasions between April 15 and September 27, they weren't materially affected. You could argue the Mets hadn't “suffered” a defeat of substance since September 2005.
Until last night. Now that was substantial.
For whatever reason, I wasn't cold. Maybe layering works. Maybe the Shea wind tunnel simply skipped my one particular row of my one particular section of the mezzanine — an area, I have to assess, that wasn't as boozy as my other stops this October and, perhaps as a result, I have to confess, not quite as much rabid fun. Maybe I was just fortunate, luck already having brought me there instead of my couch. I had no prospects at being at this game until rain, rescheduling and religion forced the original ticketholder out of his Friday night slot. I was more than happy to swap him a set of Andrew Jackson trading cards for his admission (and thrilled that he was able to find his way in Thursday, so I didn't feel like a secular Selig vulture feeding off the bum circumstances MLB and meteorology dealt him).
Strange how quickly attending postseason affairs at Shea went from wishful thought to giddy reality to something that by definition became ritual this month. Four games, four go's. Nobody's more surprised or delighted than me.
I suppose you're waiting for the inevitable punchline, the “some prize that turned out to be,” but no. On my way in last night, at the juncture where I step off at Woodside to turn toward Shea, hundreds poured out. Big roar went up. A cacophony of “LET'S GO METS! LET'S GO METS!” mixed with “JOSE! JOSE! JOSE! JOSE!” and even a little “Meet the Mets” (“butcher and baker” verse, no less) ensued. Oh, I thought, here we go again with this.
Slap me. Slap me hard. Don't ever let me find fault in being caught in a nightly crowd of exuberant Mets fans ever again. Yes, some were liquored up and many were too young to fathom. “Isn't it funny that the last time the Mets won was 20 years ago and we were born 20 years ago?” I heard one adult tell another. It wasn't that funny. But the sensation of being in a mass of Mets fans marching to Flushing in October will never not be wonderful.
Can't say the same about a number of other elements, however, including Willie's addiction to Guillermo Mota; the deployment of the Sandman when it's clear the ocean needs to make more sand; John Maine's reversion to Kris Benson sans the mouthy lifemate; the inability to not hit into crucial double plays; the aversion of Carlos Delgado to trickling grounders; the nice try but you got your glove on it so why don't you catch it business in right; and…crap, it was a loss. What do I want? Blood?
A little.
The obvious of October is don't lose games you can win. Don't lose games you lead. Don't lose games you lead twice. Don't lose games in which you make Chris Carpenter look like Karen Carpenter. Don't lose games to which your bullpen just devoted five innings of its finite resources. Don't lose games that could you put in front two-oh.
I wasn't cold, but I came away with a chill, reminded as I arrived home what winter feels like. Basketball and hockey scores infiltrated the 20/20 updates. I could make out my breath. Win or lose in St. Louis tonight, there are no more than five games left at Shea this month if things go various combinations of wrong and right. Go very wrong and there are none. With the unknown being exactly that, who knows if this particular stadium of ours, destined for demolition after 2008, will ever host another night at the time of year when you don't dare not layer?
Approaching Shea, I dared to dream of sweeps and World Series. Leaving it, I envisioned nothing. Absolutely nothing.
It's October 14. It's too soon.

So Taguchi? Ya gotta be kidding me, Billy!
Like every other wearer of blue and orange, I was huddled in worry about Big Bad Albert, who'd shown signs of getting his pilot light relit in his seventh-inning battle against Mota. Worried about Albert. Worried about Billy Wagner pitching in a non-save situation. Worried about So Taguchi? Only on the off-chance that he might eke out a walk ahead of his Pujolsness.
Oops.
In an effort to be philosophical about it all, I suppose Billy was due for a stinker after a half-season of almost universally praiseworthy work. And from early on this game had the look of an ugly, no-rules pig pile with groin kicks and eye gouges and unchivalrous things happening down in the muck: Maine and Carpenter couldn't find their release points, Jim Joyce couldn't find the strike zone, Fox couldn't find a radar gun that didn't add 3 MPH to everybody, and I was absolutely unable to find solace even in a 3-0 lead. Too much unease in the night.
By the way, if you're at home and feel like the anxiety of October baseball may finally shred what's left of your sanity, try TiVo. With Emily at the game tonight, the duty of getting Joshua through bath and into bed fell to me. Reluctantly, I paused Fox at about 7:45 and unpaused it at 8:18, expecting to zoom through half an hour of blather and catch up to live action just in time for first pitch. I quickly realized the game had actually started at 8:05, meaning I was 14 minutes behind real life and wouldn't catch up until the middle innings.
The funny thing? On delay, even an NLCS game seemed less important — at least for me, there's something about watching plays you know already happened that robs them of their power. I actually found myself doing little chores and flipping through a magazine in the early innings, something that's fine for the regular season but borderline treason in October. And then, the instant I caught up and TiVo and real life were once more in sync, the tension arrived so fast and hit so hard that it was like a pile-driver into the couch.
Unfortunately, I caught back up not long before things went awry. With Mota on the mound, I do wish Pedro had called a pitch in from the dugout against Scott Spiezio and that ridiculous thing on his chin, which I believe is known as a landing strip when adorning another region of the other gender. With Wags nearing the end of his implosion, I wish somebody had reminded him that Spiezio seems incapable of hitting anything offspeed, so why on God's green earth would you throw him another fastball? I wish Shawn Green had made what would have been a fairly incredible catch. On the other hand, I got my wish that Spiezio's ball wouldn't go out, which it seemed certain to do, and wouldn't be erroneously but understandably revised into a home run, which it wasn't.
Reyes is awake. Delgado is hammering the ball (and the occasional grounder smacked his way, but oh well). Most of our bullpen did just fine. But we're grasping at straws here. Because tonight sucked, and now we go to St. Louis and trot out Trachsel and Oliver Perez, which could potentially suck a whole lot worse.
For a team that apparently expired in the last days of September, the Cardinals sure are a nasty breed of undead. Can we win three more games before they do? Of course we can. But will we? Going to St. Louis up 2-0 with Carpenter behind us wouldn't have killed the Cardinals, but it would have planted a stake in their collective heart while we hunted around for wafers to stick in the mouth and waited for sunlight to turn them into smoke. Now? It's pitch black and there are things going bump in the night.