I should feel more disappointed. What's wrong with me?

I dunno. Is it that we all figured that between Brown and Zambrano, we and they would take turns cringing at the sight of our starter? Was it that while we played horrible baseball, they played only slightly less horrible baseball? Was it the momentary cheer from Heath Bell making like Jaime Cerda? (Heath, please let the comparison end there.) Was it accepting that Roberto Hernandez was due for a bum note again? Was it thinking that, what the hey, now we've got the same record and we can get this thing on in earnest?

Maybe. But I think it's that we've done this every year for a good long time now, and it's just hard to get up for it the way I once did — which means (luckily right now) that it's also hard to get down the way I once did. (Gotta get up to get down. I think George Michael said that. Let's just move along.) I think it's that while we don't look like shoo-ins for the division or even an 82-win season, we also look nothing like the walking disaster of the last two seasons — while at the same time, the Collapse-o-Meter may or may not toll for them, but they're clearly not the same how-dare-you-get-blood-on-my-wheels juggernaut they've been. It's a three-game series in May. I'm a lot more worried about those Braves and Marlins next week.

Or maybe it's that when your scuffling, infuriating but persevering starter gets into trouble in the 6th and gets the perfect, tailormade, kiss-your-sweetheart-and-pump-your-fist one-hop grounder he needs for the double play, and then it clanks off the second baseman's glove, some of the fight goes out of you. And when on the next play, your now slightly perturbed-looking starter gets a one-hopper to a Gold Glove first baseman who's ready to throw home, and then it clanks off his glove, you know that God's turned His back, and while you can come back and play tomorrow, tonight's not ending well.

Proper perspective on things, left numb…. Hmm. Proper perspective on things, left numb…. Ah hell. Ask me tomorrow.

Does it seem to you that every “innovation” baseball has come up with over the past decade or so has done us very little good? They realigned divisions in time to give us the endless Braves (who would've made for better company pre-1991 than the Cubs, Cards or Bucs did at precisely the wrong moments); they instituted a Wild Card that we were, granted, able to benefit from twice, but think how many we could've used in the '80s; and they concocted Interleague play right after the other New York team won its first World Series in a generation, making the other New York team seem like far more than it really was.

Not that 1986 needed any enhancement, but in retrospect, it would have been sweet to have seen this particular circus covered back then as it is covered now except with the tables turned. The local tapeheads could have gone to Yankee Stadium and pestered Mike Pagliarulo and Dennis Rasmussen about the pressure of going up against the mighty Mets. Dan Pasqua could've talked dreamily about what a dream come true it was to go to an exciting place like Shea where the fans are world-renowned and every pitch is an event. The Mattingly crowd could have sputtered on about how their man would finally get some recognition now that he'd be able, at long last, to share the big stage for a few days with the larger-than-life likes of Carter, Hernandez and Strawberry.

Meanwhile, Davey Johnson could have scoffed at the whole thing, reminding reporters that our big rival is St. Louis, this thing is a nuisance. Doc Gooden would go on regular rest against the Expos because the Yankees wouldn't present reason enough to mess with our rotation (hell, use Rick Anderson — it's only the Yankees). Mex would've said one game is like the next. And Wally Backman would've added something insulting and dismissive and then backed it up. When it would be over and the Mets had taken their usual four or five of six, the storyline would be “same old, same old, the Yankees are forever trying to measure up to the Mets but they never quite manage to do so.” And Steinbrenner would fire Piniella and dig up Alvin Dark.

But no, we didn't get that. Instead, we know what we've gotten since 1997. We know the tone. We know the condescension and patronization directed toward our little major market ballclub. We know that every year, at least one newbie on our end will cop to being impressed-to-awed with the opposition or at least the opposing ballpark and its (genuflect) monuments. We know that it will be treated by everybody official on this side of the ledger as a milestone in the schedule just as we know that the participants in the other dugout will do no more than yawn for public consumption. And we know that no matter what we do in the actual series of games — even if we win most of them as we did last year — it will be belittled and diminished in hindsight because, well, we're the Mets and they're the Yankees.

Nevertheless, I'll be up for this when it starts. I can't help it. I watch lots of baseball, but the only things that I can depend on to rev my motor every single time are the chances that the Mets will win and that the Yankees will lose. To have a dual opportunity for both present itself in the course of a single game that counts is too good to dismiss.

It's been this way since Andy Pettitte faced Lance Johnson to start the very first of these games. I was on my way home from work, listening on my Walkman and jumping out of my skin with every pitch. The Mets were playing the Yankees…for real! That we beat them rather easily that night (All Hail Mlicki) codified that it wasn't such a bad idea.

And by the way, this had nothing, not a damn thing to do with the “little brother” myth that's been perpetrated by the brain-dead baseball media in this town over the past ten years. Little brother, my ass. When I came along, there was only one baseball team that mattered in New York and it was the Mets. That's how it looked to me in 1969 and anything that's happened more recently is something I see as a brief aberration from the way things are supposed to be and, deep down, truly are. In any case, we don't have a big brother in the Bronx, just a drunken, boorish lout of a distant relative twice removed.

Since June 16-18, 1997, each series and each game has at the very least grabbed my attention and usually kept it. Maybe I should be cooler about it. Maybe I should be cynical by now. Maybe I should be downtrodden. Going into tonight, after all, it's 16-26. But there have been too many good moments that have followed Mlicki — M. Franco vs. Rivera; J. Franco vs. Posada; M. Piazza going deep vs. Rat Bastard Clemens, Ramiro Mendoza and some poor sap named Carlos Almanzar to name three; Shane Spencer going short vs. Tanyon Sturtze; Mo Vaughn practically redeeming his sorry tenure by shredding David Wells; Al's cutters frustrating the whole lot of them; Roger Cedeño stealing home; even Estes' home run despite his lousy aim at an ample, vile target — to write off the Subway Series as a gimmick or to find it irredeemably futile. As bad as the 26 losses were, the 16 wins were that much better.

Sure, Interleague still feels a little unnatural on rhythms attuned to a National League schedule, but no matter how others may frame it, it boils down to the team we love the most versus the team we hate the most. If you can't get up for that, then geez, what's the point of loving and hating in baseball?

I wish you could've been inside my head last Saturday afternoon. For the first four innings before I left the house, I made so many in-game deals with the gods and censored so many between-pitches thoughts that you would've assumed I was carrying the fate of the free world in my consciousness. Or that the doctor called — the news was not good, and I said, “Get me to a New York Hospital.”

It wasn't either of those things. It was just the Cardinals. I wanted the Mets to beat them. But I was afraid, genuinely fearful, that if I rooted too hard for this pitch to land here or that ball to go there, I'd be asking for too much. I wanted the Mets to win on Saturday, but I also wanted them to win on Sunday. Thus, I didn't want to be ostentatious in my victory desires on Saturday.

There was nobody around. I had no pipeline to the ghost of Kenesaw Mountain Landis. None of the umps owed me a solid. It wasn't like I could do anything about anything. It appeared that no matter what I was thinking, the Mets were on their own.

My thoughts don't have much practical impact in general let alone on baseball. For example, I'll sometimes think, “I shouldn't eat that.” But then I do. “I should really get to work on that thing.” But then I don't. I can barely control myself, so I know it is folly to believe I can control a baseball game going on in another area code. But that doesn't stop me from trying.

I tell you all of this so you understand that I understand the way things work. That you don't disturb baseball karma. That you go through a sequence, a batter, a series, a season, a lifetime very, very carefully if you want or don't want certain things to occur on a diamond that you are not on or necessarily near.

Think I'm kidding? I once sat in my living room during a playoff game against the Braves telling my wife in extremely grave tones that Chipper Jones was a splendid humanitarian because I knew saying anything remotely unkind about him would just piss him off and result in a rain of extra bases. That Chipper and I were separated by seven states and the District of Columbia at the time was completely irrelevant.

And he didn't get a hit.

So I know what I'm doing even if the results don't always reflect that. Last weekend, the Mets won neither Saturday nor Sunday. It had nothing to do with what I was thinking early Saturday. It would be illogical to believe that. No, the Mets came up empty because I failed to include Grudzielanek and Mabry in my spiteful scouting report Friday. There was a shortfall of preparedness on my part, and I apologize for it.

When it comes to baseball and the aspects therein that we hold most dear — the Mets winning and the Yankees losing — I absolutely acknowledge that there are consequences to my thoughts, my actions and yes, my blogging. I am aware of them. I take them seriously. And as long as I know in my heart of hearts that I do the right thing or, just as importantly, don't do the wrong thing, I sleep fine.

In other words, pull the tarp off and plug that sucker in. This weekend, I'm prepared.

NEW YORK YANKEE COLLAPSE-O-METER

BIG PICTURE EDITION

YEAR GAMES PLAYED RECORD FINAL RECORD

476* 41 40-1 FELL

1965 41 17-24 77-85

1982 41 21-20 79-83

2005 41 21-20 ??-???

*Roman Empire, but close enough

Remember: Not long ago, the Reds were unbeatable…by us, no less.

Remember, too: You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance. Fear and arrogance.

May the Force be with us.

People ask me what I do on an off-day when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for later in the spring. *

Off-days suck. They suck anytime. You've lost three of five, you've lost nine straight, you've finished the season having lost 90+ games and nobody particularly wanted the caps thrown into the stands, doesn't matter: An off-day is still howlingly empty, a void that's never full no matter how much fidgeting and resentment you pour into it. But off-days suck even more when you're playing well: When you're getting the bounces and the calls, the big hits and the little hits and the shouldn't-be-hits, an off-day is like someone pinching you and yanking you out of a sweet, gentle dream. And most of the time that nice dream isn't reclaimable when you smack back into the pillow.

So an off-day when we've just steamrolled the Cincinnati Reds? With the Yankees coming to visit? Thanks, schedule makers. It sucks on so many levels. It sucks to have an entire day of fretting about the Yankees, who are hotter than Newsweek's e-mail right now, without even the decent distraction of an old-fashioned National League game. It sucks to have a deep-breath day before a 10-day stretch that'll tell us something about this team and 2005 — better to stay unconscious and keep taking the field than pause for unhelpful reflection. It sucks to have to fill a day with worries about our marquee free agent, lightning rod, spiritual leader, and newly beloved el jefe — I don't wanna talk about Pedro's hip or the cortisone shot la la la I'm not listening to you. And most basically and perhaps even most importantly, it sucks to know a warm spring night is going to roll around with no baseball game to cradle, consume and consider. What am I supposed to do, go see Revenge of the Sith? Oh yeah, I'm also a Star Wars geek, I probably should go see Revenge of the Sith.

(Speaking of Revenge of the Sith, the only reason I haven't chastised you for the karmic poking of a wasps' nest that was the Collapse-o-Meter is that I know you've been lying awake nights regretting it on your own. Well, that and the fact that I was enjoying it too much. We Yankee haters are like sleepaway-camp counselors in a slasher movie — we see the escaped lunatic plunge into the old well with a pitchfork bisecting him and we head back to our cabins for a night of hard-earned rest. And then … NOOOOOO!!!!!! Will we never learn?)

By the way, the Reds are terrible. They're pathetic in the old sense of the word, “arousing or capable of arousing sympathetic sadness and compassion.” Right now they're the knobby-kneed nine-year-old in right field praying the ball won't get hit to him, then closing his eyes when it inevitably is. (I know of what I speak: One horrible evening in 1978 I floundered after a ball hit over my head in right field, grabbed it, wheeled, fired, fell down and extracted my face from the clover to see I'd thrown it kind of near the bewildered center fielder. I wish I were exaggerating even a little bit. Ich bin ein Red.) The Reds make physical mistakes, mental mistakes, get screwed on calls, the whole bad-team shebang. They look like us after The Trade. And Dave Miley is, like, so fired — he's already doing that drowning-manager thing of alternately flying into scary rages and staring out at the field in numb disbelief. Don't worry Dave, it'll be over soon.

Of course, I wish we played them again tomorrow, instead of not again until 2006. I wish we played anybody tomorrow. Let's play one!

* Apologies to 1962 New York Mets coach Rogers Hornsby. I hear he also played for the Cardinals or something.

Didja see the Mets game Tuesday night?

Yeah.

Who won?

Mets did.

Great! Who pitched?

Kaz…

Cuz I wanna know. Who pitched?

Kaz…

Like I said, cuz I wanna know.

You're not listening closely. Kaz!

Cuz I wanna know!

Kaz…he pitched.

Cuz who pitched?

Kaz!

Cuz without knowing who pitched, I don't really know what happened.

I know this is a stretch, but the pitcher's name was Kaz. Kaz Ishii.

Oh. How'd he do?

Kaz?

Yeah.

He pitched well.

Did he pitch long?

Yeah.

Did he pitch in the ninth?

No.

Who pitched in the ninth?

Koo.

I'm asking you as nicely as I can.

Koo.

I'll whisper softly: Who pitched in the ninth?

And I'm telling you who!

Who?

Koo.

You sure?

Yeah. Koo.

OK, I'll try to be a little more breathy. Mmmmm, baby, who pitched in the ninth? Ooooh, you're so sexy.

What the hell are you talking about?

I'm talking about you. You're sweet. Mmmmm…say, is this really necessary?

No!

Then why do I have to coo?

I don't want you to coo!

So why did you tell me to coo?

I didn't!

You said coo!

I said Koo!

Yeah!

I was telling you the pitcher was Koo!

Koo?

The pitcher's name was Koo. Dae-Sung Koo.

Oh. How'd he do?

Koo?

Yeah.

He ran into a little bit of trouble.

Did he finish the game?

No.

Who did?

Loop.

Loop?

Loop.

If you insist.

Yeah, I do.

Didja see the Mets game Tuesday night?

Yeah.

Who won?

Mets did.

Great! Who pitched?

Kaz…

Cuz I wanna know. Who pitched?

Kaz…wait a second!

What?

I already told you all that.

I know.

Then why did you go back the beginning of this conversation?

Because you said loop.

I know I said Loop.

OK. Didja see the Mets game Tuesday night?

Yeah.

Who won?

Mets did.

Great! Who pitched?

Kaz…WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

I asked you who finished the game and you told me loop.

Yeah.

You acknowledge that?

Yeah.

Absolutely sure?

Yeah!

Fine. Then can I ask you something?

Go ahead.

Who finished the game?

Loop.

Here we go again…Didja see the Mets game Tuesday night?

Look, I don't know what your problem is, but I'm going to tell you everything you need to know right now, so pay attention: Kaz Ishii started for the Mets. He pitched well and he pitched long, but he didn't finish the game. Dae-Sung Koo came on to start the ninth but allowed two Reds to reach base. He was relieved by Braden Looper and Loop finished the game and recorded a save.

Oh. Why didn't you say so?

He didn't pitch.

Who didn't pitch?

Seo.

What?

You asked why I didn't say Seo.

Yeah.

And I'm telling you.

What are you telling me?

That he didn't pitch.

Who?

Seo.

That's rather dismissive.

Seo…he didn't pitch.

And, between you and me, a little rude.

Listen, Seo didn't pitch.

Who so didn't pitch?

I think you're confused.

Well, you're not helping.

Help me help you. What do you want to know?

Just that what you're telling me is the truth.

Of course it is.

Then, truthfully, who were those pitchers who you said pitched in the game?

Kaz, Koo and Loop…not Seo.

Then why did you say they pitched?

They did.

But you said not so.

That's right, not Seo.

Can you be honest with me for once?

I am being honest.

You are?

Yeah.

Kaz pitched?

Yeah.

Koo pitched?

Yeah.

Loop pitched?

Yeah.

That's what I wanted to know.

Well, that's what you should know. Those guys pitched.

Those guys pitched?

Not Seo.

Then who did pitch?

I'll spell it out for you one more time.

Please.

Kaz Ishii started.

Got it.

Dae-Sung Koo pitched in the ninth.

Got it.

Braden Looper finished the game.

Got it.

Not Seo.

Why are you in such denial?

Denial? The only thing I want to deny is that I know you. What's wrong with you?

Wrong with me? I asked you who pitched, you name three pitchers for me and then you tell me not so.

Yeah.

Then what am I supposed to do?

What's the big deal? Jae Seo didn't pitch for the Mets Tuesday night.

Jae Seo?

Yeah. Jae Seo's not even on the 25-man roster.

Aaaah! I think I understand.

Good. Why don't you tell me what happened in the game?

You sure?

Yeah.

You really sure?

Yeah.

You absolutely sure?

I'm absolutely sure. Go ahead already.

OK. Kaz started.

Uh-huh…

He pitched well but didn't finish the game.

Uh-huh…

Koo came on in the ninth.

Uh-huh…

But Koo couldn't get the final outs.

Uh-huh…

That meant Loop had to.

Uh-huh…

And he did.

Uh-huh…

Plus, Jae Seo wasn't involved in the least little bit.

I think you've finally grasped it.

In fact, Jae Seo was entirely superfluous to this little dialogue of ours.

Perhaps, but the important thing is you nailed it.

I did?

That you did.

At long last, I am accurate?

That you are.

And I am correct?

That you are as well.

So, all in all, you would have to say I am right.

No, he's on third.

Good night to be a Kaz. Ishii was good and Matsui was better, writing a storybook finish.

I shouldn't feel so confident so soon after losing five of seven, but I went about various household chores waiting more or less calmly for us to come back and grab this one. Maybe it was just not believing in Ramon Ortiz (who possibly had his Paul Wilson In Wrigley moment), or figuring the Reds would find a way to screw it up. I choose to believe it was remembering that among its quirks good bad and infuriating, our little team has a penchant for drama. But Matsui? In front of his tormentors? That's asking for a lot of drama.

(Additional tip of the cap to Looper, who came in looking PO'ed, threw bullets, and then offered Ed Coleman an uncharacteristically blunt and therefore interesting postgame interview. Yes, he hears fans boo and no, he wasn't too happy with Willie starting the inning with Nameless Koo. Him and several hundred thousand other Met fans.)

Oh, and the Mike DiFelice era began. This man has a ridiculous career, to which he can now add a one-assumes-brief tenure as a Met backup catcher. We've sure specialized in those over the last 10 years: Charlie Greene? Jorge Fabregas? Rick Wilkins? Gary Bennett? Joe DePastino? Tom Wilson? I'd half-suspect these guys are all the same guy, except that Gary Bennett did become a real catcher, Jorge Fabregas gave the most-irritating interview in the history of WFAN (he answered every question put to him with “No doubt about it…”), and Joe DePastino was tearing it up as a Long Island Duck before getting signed by the Blue Jays earlier this month. Amazingly enough, as a Duck he was a teammate of … Kevin Baez. Now that's love of the game.

Don't stand pat. Look smart! Have the answer to any given problem. “Say, you know how our second baseman isn't quite up to snuff at the moment? I have the solution that isn't right in front of your nose!”

Thus the recurring theme of Bring Up Schmendrick! — or Keppinger or Bell or Wright or whoever the Norfolk flavor of the month is at any given moment. The backup quarterback is the prospective Man of the Year in every NFL city. Astronauts and war heroes of indeterminate ideology always make excellent candidates for president a month before the Iowa caucuses. Triple-A is a repository of the perfect alternative in much the same way. Vaguely known quantities are always preferable to the options at hand.

And when that doesn't work, there's always Binghamton.

I'm trying not to overreact to Victor Diaz going the other way since it is probably for his and our own good. The fact that they want him to go and get better as an outfielder is a positive sign that they won't fall in love with Floyd and Cameron into perpetuity based on what they're doing right now and extend their contracts to 2013. Victor Diaz will find a spot eventually. He could've been a big bat off the bench right now but maybe it's more important he be a big player all-around later. Just not much later I hope.

A second cousin of the Triple-A solution is the pitcher who's gonna come off the DL and steady the rotation. That's always the fantasy. Trachsel will be that down the road. Ishii will be that tonight. And Benson was finally that last night. Woo-hoo! His performance Monday was indicative of what he'll do the rest of the way. What he did before, like in Chicago last week? That wasn't the real Benson. It wasn't because we don't want it to be.

Gene, one of our generally insightful readers from Long Island, was particularly keen yesterday, keeping an eye on the Comments section of Faith and Fear and noticing an exchange in which I said, in response to a particularly sharp Robert Guillaume reference:

Good line on Benson, though I'd prefer something like 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 6 K.

Benson's actual line was 7.2 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 8 K. Close enough to make it my default preference.

“So,” Gene asked afterwards, “how about posting something like 'I'd prefer that the Mets win something like 120 games this year and sweep the World Series.' Use your gifts for good, damn it.”

Gene, I appreciate the thought, but of course I don't have that kind of power. I just got lucky.

But I'd sure like to see a Met pitcher throw a no-hitter by the end of the week.

Yeesh. Our spiritual cousins at Faith and Fear in Cincy are no doubt writing some furious screed right now, pausing between gouts of venom to consider the cosmic significance of some long-ago game featuring the likes of Ed Ott. (I sat next to Ed Ott's wife on a plane once. She was beautiful.) As you've just noted, 19-19 teams are singularly frustrating for their impossibility to be summed up, but it's pretty easy to describe what 14-23 teams look like. They have crummy pitching, horrible fielding, are constantly on the losing end of the rock-paper-scissors equations of hit-and-runs and steals, can't look runners back to third, and can't even call time, step off and pick up a likely force out on an appeal play after an enemy runner leaves a base early. In other words, they look like this.

There ain't much to say about a game like tonight's — it's no more indicative of a team's actual makeup than a 9-2 loss — so I want to rant about something that's been sticking in my craw. Call it “Not Player X” syndrome.

When a loss really bugs me, I listen to “your phone calls” on the FAN, for the simple reason that 90% of the people who call in are crazier than shithouse rats — a realization that almost immediately snaps me back to my own vague approximation of perspective. Jeez, I wind up thinking, it wasn't that bad. All you people really need to calm down. Yesterday was a prime example: Yes, it was a teeth-grindingly annoying loss. But most everyone who called in sounded like they watched baseball games while huffing paint thinner. One guy had had it with Reyes' poor pitch selection and wanted him sent down to Norfolk. The next guy wanted the Mets to release Matsui — I think with another half-hour of solvents to the sinuses, he would have suggested having him drawn and quartered. Another guy wanted Chris Woodward to play every day. And on and on it went, caller after caller driving poor Gary Cohen further and further around the bend, until I felt restored and clicked off the dial. By the way, I've got three guesses what Gary's No. 1 demand at contract time will be.

But it wasn't the garden-variety lunacy that was still bugging me this morning. It was the more-educated and thus more-insidious version of it. And this syndrome has a face: Jeff Keppinger. Jeff Keppinger was the answer, demented dialer after demented dialer insisted. Jeff Keppinger should replace Matsui. Jeff Keppinger would lead us to the promised land! Jeff Keppinger!

Granted, Keppinger was a semi-nice surprise last year — a terrific contact hitter with some surprising power, even if he doesn't walk enough. But the callers on the FAN weren't advocating Jeff Keppinger because he hit .284 during Garbage Time '04. And they probably haven't been down in the International League scouting him. In fact, I doubt they could pick Jeff Keppinger out of a police lineup. No, except for the basic (AAA) stat line, none of this has anything to do with Jeff Keppinger. Rather, it's that Jeff Keppinger is Not Kaz Matsui. And that's the only thing that matters to those who've let their indignation about Kaz Matsui overwhelm them. (If there's a fuller case to be made for why I'm selling Keppinger short, I'm all ears.)

In our weaker moments, we all do this. Aaron Heilman really does have two great starts under his belt and the added benefit of being homegrown, but let's face it — most of his appeal is that he's Not Victor Zambrano. Scott Strickland's a nice comeback story, but mostly he's Not Manny Aybar. Victor Diaz was hot as a pistol, but it didn't hurt that we got tired of Mike Cameron's strikeouts, odd troubles in center and grumbling about right. Now playing right field, and batting eighth, Not Mike Cameron! Blake McGinley's business cards probably say Hi, My Name Is Not Dae-Sung Koo.

This doesn't apply in every situation, of course: If Matsui can't get on track, Miguel Cairo certainly should get more playing time. Heath Bell really did have some '04 numbers of his own and has made the most of his chance so far. But part of the contract of reasonable fandom ought to be assessing players for who they are, not simply who they aren't. Those two pass that test. But Chris Woodward? Jeff Keppinger? Brian Daubach?

Or if you can't avoid Not Player X syndrome (and lots of times I can't either), at least leave poor Gary Cohen in peace.

Conventional baseball wisdom has it that you can't take every single game serious as death. If you are a player or a manager or an executive or an owner, perhaps. Me, the überfan? I find it impossible to treat any of them as if there isn't something important going on. Blame my skewed priorities or take the logical approach that we only have 162 shots at this thing. (Listen, I haven't surrounded myself with reasonably like-prioritized individuals like yourself over the past decade just so I can be told “it's only a game,” so I know to some degree you are on the same page.)

Is any one game life or death? Only by government decree, and to borrow from Homer Simpson from earlier tonight, with Commander Cuckoo Bananas in charge, anything is possible. But literally, only those games that ruin your chance to continue your season, to go beyond the allotted 162, are life or death. Everything else is part of the rich pageantry, and any given game, no matter how disappointing the result, shouldn't be cause for concern.

But string a few of 'em in relative proximity, and then you've got a problem. The Mets have done just that all over again, losing five of their last seven, and it's taking its toll one one's ability (OK, my ability) to take things one day at a time.

It seems like I was just strolling up the street on the afternoon of April 4 for my Opening Day sandwich to enjoy in advance of the first pitch of the 2005 season. That sandwich is long gone, my friend, as is almost a quarter of the schedule. Thirty-eight games in the book. Thirty-eight games we're never going to get back. Thirty-eight episodes of baseball, not some pompous, overwrought multipart documentary by a Red Sox fan who reconfigured what happened in 1986 to fit his own sorry provincial take, but actual baseball that we live and breathe as it happens.

We're 19 and 19. That's mediocre, buddy. That's .500 on the nose. That's winning some and losing some over and over and over again.

That's the Mets this year? You are, it's been said by many, what your record says you are, so we're a break-even proposition until our record tells us different. In the long view, that's not so bad, and not just by dictionary standards. This is a franchise whose last edition, it will be recalled, finished the season at 71-91, so if they continue to play at a .500 clip, by gum that's 81-81, a ten-game improvement.

But you and I, we know different. We've watched this team take flight from time to time this year. We've watched them be absolutely meteoric. Sure, there was the six-game winning streak that seemed to obliterate the five-game losing streak, but just as telling there were those innings here and those innings there where my gosh, I just wanted to believe we were seeing a corner being turned — turned and left behind.

Some corners take longer to navigate than others in this game that we so adore. Going from being the debilitated Mets of 2001 through 2004 to the bolstered Mets of 2005 and beyond will take some work. We're rubbernecking the construction right now. I wish it didn't take a whole project, but apparently it does. There are precious few 1969 Mets years and even that was preceded by an energized 1968 that told the folks that something good was going to happen sooner or later. It just happened ridiculously soon.

When Duquette took over for Phillips, the “r” word, as in rebuilding, was uttered sotto voce. Of course you can't market a team in New York as a thing that's gonna be good, just you wait. There is no wait in now, know what I mean? Nobody can wait. But fans like us, we wanted rebuilding, having had the prefab structure that was slapped together with Alomar, Vaughn, Burnitz and Cedeño disintegrate on impact.

So we got a teeny, little bit of rebuilding between mid-2003 and the end of 2004. We got Reyes when he was healthy enough. We got Wright when he was raw. Mostly we got Shane Spencer and Karim Garcia instead of Vladimir Guerrero and more Todd Zeile in his twilight than I dreamed possible. Then we (Wilpon) got bored and said the hell with it, we're not rebuilding, we're going for it, more or less.

But guess what? This season is still one of rebuilding. Well, rebuilding on high-priced amphetamines, perhaps. It's been sped up with Pedro and Carlos and a few other additives, but it's not a finished product. If only I could remember that from day to day, I could step back and think of games like this weekend's as some version of experience to which things are chalked up. I could appreciate two competitive games, one that I listened to as I took a long pre-theater walk through Manhattan and the other that I watched from a mezzanine box.

We lost both. The first one I was able to deny away: It's a beautiful day, my wife and I are going to see Sweet Charity on a Saturday night in the greatest city in the world, so what if we lost a one-run game when we had a lead? The second one, I almost managed to sweep under the rug: First warm day at the ballpark, one or two little victories (explained in a moment) embedded in a loss. Hey, we dropped two of three to the defending National League champions, a team leading its division by a comfortable margin, no shame in that, go get me some chalk.

But phooey. Phooey, phooey, phooey! Those games were there for the taking. No Rolen at all. No Pujols in the lineup Sunday. No sense that the Cardinals had it goin' on. And we didn't win more than once. We keep doing that, not winning games that we could, not winning games in which we play pretty well. I was all full of phooey by the time I got home.

We've done a pretty decent job considering the rotation tatters more by the week and that our first baseman and catcher are barely hitting .400 between them. I keep seeing good stuff and then expect it to be the norm. It's not. Floyd won't hit two Monsta shots every night of his life. Cameron won't come through in the ninth just because he came through earlier. Reyes…to tell you the truth, my favorite Met is really beginning to make me wonder, but that's too depressing to contemplate right now.

The point is maybe we are what our record says we are and maybe that's not awful and maybe — hopefully — it is a step toward the finished product that unfortunately is at least a year away. I'm not giving up on 2005 exactly, just attempting to become more accepting of its emerging contours. It will make the life-and-death angle a little easier to take for the next 124 days and nights.

As for the small victory of Sunday afternoon, it came when LaRussa sent Pujols into pinch-hit against Heath Bell, ostensibly to pound a nail in the Mets' heart. There was, as I predicted, a smattering (more like a generous sprinkling) of Cardinals fans in the house. Honestly, they weren't any more annoying than I was in Washington. They were rooting for the visiting team is all and I wasn't in the mood for it. Not their fault, per se. One guy in particular, though, tried the patience that we as Mets fans have forcefully foresworn.

Pujols is announced into the game. The guy, sitting a couple of boxes away, stands and starts chanting M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P! Fun is fun, of course. Cliff's heard M-V-P! chants on occasion but I think as deluded as Shea makes us all, we know we're kidding; it's May. But this guy was ridiculously serious about it. Now I like to give opposing stars their props. If Pujols had been in the starting lineup, I would've respectfully applauded when his name was read, maybe even when he came to bat in the first. But as a pinch-hitter late in the game, screw that, he's the enemy.

More than most encounters of this nature, I was locked in on Heath Bell and Albert Pujols. I knew we were probably going to lose this game. I know Albert Pujols will have many great days. I wouldn't bet against him actually winning Most Valuable Player this year. But J.C. Martin, I'll be damned if the M-V-P! guy is going to get that kind of satisfaction right here, right now.

Heath Bell struck out Albert Pujols. And I stood up, clapped and hooted and then turned toward him and shouted…

M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!

What made it even better is that the guy with him, a Mets fan, was already doing the exact same thing.

No matter how mediocre your team reveals itself to be, this is the kind of stuff you can glean only from baseball, bless its seamy white exterior.

So according to the soon-to-be-today's Times, the Mets will figure out what to do with Heilman after soon-to-be-today's start. And Willie's not interested in sending Zambrano to the bullpen, even though in 2001 and 2002 he made nearly 70 appearances out of the pen. Curious, I'll grant you, but I'm having trouble getting up in arms about it. I don't think Minaya and Willie care that exiling Zambrano to the pen would be a back-page embarrassment and make everybody yell about Scott Kazmir again — after all, one of the other possible outcomes is that Zambrano goes to the minors, which is even worse from a tabloid-avoidance perspective. This isn't their deal, for one, and anyway Kazmir's 0-4 with a 4.60 ERA. (I cursed him by making him a member of Jaison D'Etres.)

The visceral fan reaction here is that Zambrano should be sent down, released or shot. But actually I agree with Willie's dues-paying mentality here. It's wonderful that Aaron Heilman's made strides, but the idea that anyone would give a fig about Aaron Heilman being in the rotation, the bullpen, Norfolk or on the waiver wire would have reduced Metdom to horse laughs a month ago. He's earned the right to get a real look as a member of a major-league pitching staff, but that's all he's earned — his big-league resume suggests promise at best, and while that's a lot better than not so long ago, it's still just promise. Zambrano clearly needs more than 10 minutes to fix — How many minutes are we up to now, Dr. Peterson? — but he's shown far better stuff than Heilman, his upside is obviously higher, and he's proven that he can succeed as a starting pitcher for stretches at a time. And where did he come from to make that case as a starter? The bullpen. Besides, while it's fun to twit Peterson, Zambrano's been obviously better since a 10-second conversation Peterson had with him on the mound in Milwaukee. He's still been annoying, goodness knows, working Leiteresque counts and letting a misplay unsettle him into a horrific inning, but at least to these eyes he's not the disaster he was.

(This is different from the idea of David Wright hitting eighth — has that actually happened, by the way? There, Willie seemed to be hazing a young player who'd demonstrated he had better skills for hitting elsewhere in the order than those being pencilled in there, and whose attitude has always been above reproach. I still think Wright should be hitting second.)

Besides, it's May. There's time yet to settle Heilman/Zambrano/Ishii. I'm more concerned about the bullpen: I hope Scott Strickland's recalled and Manny Aybar dropped down the memory hole, particularly since it seems likely that we'll have a real long man out of the pen. I also wish they'd try anyone besides Nameless Koo in the dedicated-lefty slot, since he's been miserable at getting lefty hitters and helpless against righties.

What's that? We played a game today? Yeah, we did. One of those topsy-turvy affairs whose place in memory says a lot about what kind of non-baseball day you had. The Mets came from three runs down twice, Wright had a big day at the plate, Cammy made a great play in right, Matsui earned some redemption at the plate and in the field. After coming back to take the lead, Reyes made a moronic baserunning decision, we gagged on the chance to get insurance runs, Roberto Hernandez walked the leadoff hitter and paid for it, Beltran and Cammy failed to deliver, and one that should have been a thrilling W wound up a dispiriting L. Let's play two!

Maybe it was just the sunshine, but I choose to be inspired. Roberto got Edmonds and Pujols to hit weak little pops. They both fell in. It happens. Go get 'em tomorrow. And Aaron? No pressure.