Love is Not a Victory March

Nope, the sky isn't falling, I won't try to tell you that. The Mets are 21 games over .500, hold a massive 13-game lead on their next closest foe in the NL East, and field a team everyday that, top to bottom, is just plain, old good. The best player in baseball right now, Car-los Bel-tran, plays his home games in Flushing.

It's good to be a Mets fan right about now.

However, despite all of those things, if you're not worried today, with the week this team is having, then you're not paying attention.

Putting aside the fact that Duaner Sanchez was the setup man, not the closer, over the course of the season he became the beating heart of the bullpen. His reliability and resiliency have been amazing, and crucial with the state of the rotation, and everytime he took the ball the brought a certain energy and aggression to the mound that picked up the team.

His loss is devastating, don't fool yourself it isn't. The team may not feel it right now, but feel it they will. (I'm so upset I've started talking in Yoda-isms - "feel it they will.")

As for Xavier Nady, I think Omar overreacted and gave away a young, cheap guy with big upside who provided some pop at the back of the lineup. Look at it this way, would you rather have Nady in right and Chad Bradford pitching the seventh inning, or Lastings Milledge in right and Roberto Hernandez pitching the seventh?

I prefer Nady and Bradford myself. By a lot. (And, if Omar only did the Pittsburgh deal so he could flip Ollie Perez to the Pads for Scott Linebrink, and then got jobbed by the Pads at the last minute, then shame on him for not getting the Pads to commit in stone before doing the Pittsburgh deal.)

Lastings Milledge, despite his three "unintentional" walks, demonstrated yet again last night that he doesn't belong at the big league level yet. He's a kid, and it shows in everything he does, from his play to his attitude. It's taken a while for me to come around to this point of view - but I'm very much there now.

Get him off my team, I don't want to see him again until March.

Omar needed to add a big starting pitcher and, instead, he added Bert and gave away his right fielder to get him. He tried to patch a hole that didn't really need to be patched, and created another hole in the process.

I think he lost his focus and, with all of the beautiful moves Omar has made, frankly I'm surprised. His failure to acquire a difference-maker for the rotation will probably be disastrous somewhere down the line this season. We'll see.

As for what happened on the field last night, I'm taking the loss a little harder than most others, I think. Despite what Matt Cerrone and others are saying today, that wasn't just any old blown save, that was a big one - and, I don't really care how many blown saves Trevor Hoffman or B.J. Ryan have logged since July 1, that's totally irrelevant to what happened last night.

Wagner came into that game with a chance to put everyone at ease, make the transition to LAD (Life After Duaner) a little easier to handle, he had an opportunity to be the veteran (he is) who helps steady a rocking boat, and instead he just added to the anxiety with a miserable performance. Billy Wagner needs to come up big in big games, and he can't let the Miguel Olivos and Josh Willinghams of the world beat him. Not acceptable.

For whatever reason, in mulling over the events of the last week, that Leonard Cohen song came to mind this morning: "Baby I've been here before/I've seen this room and I've walked this floor."

This is all starting to seem familiar to me, and not in a good way. Let's just hope this season doesn't turn into a cold and broken hallelujah.