Mets Suffer Wright-Off Loss

It was just what the Mets wanted.  A ninth inning showdown between the shining light of their hapless and anemic offense and their ex-closer, Billy "Goat" Wagner.  Surely ol' Countrytime would accommodate his old teammates--he was always there with a kind word or a short phrase taped to their lockers when they needed him.  It started out ok.  Wags and umpire Ron"Mea"Culpa conspired to allow Luis Castillo to become safe at first, and then Gary Mediocre Joker of all people, was able to induce Wags to wildpitch old Luis to second. GMJ finally found a talent--ducking out of the way of Wagner's apparent 100 mph fastball.  Later, with Castillo at third, David Wright K'd for the third time of the night when a mere flyball would have put the Mets up.  To rub salt in the wound that added insult to injury, with the Br*ves at bat in the bottom of the ninth, Wright then took a ball he should have put in his pocket and threw it into right field, allowing the winning run to score.  Short of tackling Johan Santana off the mound, Wright did everything one player could do to lose a game on their own.

You can't say David Wright is the Mets' main problem. That would be ridiculous. But boy did he take over the game with his lousy play in the end there. There are a million ways to lose a ballgame, and the NY Mets are slowly working through all of them; you can check off "star player blows it at bat and on the field" if you are keeping track.

You also can no longer say that the Mets don't have Dickey in the way of starting pitching. He's here.

"I have no idea when he's got it, when he doesn't have it," Manuel said, laughing. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I have no idea."

Just to be clear, Jerry is having a laugh about R.A. Dickey, the starter called up to replace Ollie or Niese or someone tomorrow, not discussing his general game plan.  I'm glad Manuel can still laugh about his team's predicament.  Ask me three innings into tomorrow's knuckleball spectacular if I'm laughing.