If Jae Seo had pitched his last two games in newfangled bandboxes instead of RFK and Shea, it wouldn't seem unfair to deport him to Norfolk. Balls rocketed off Nats' bats in D.C., most of them dying in the alleys, but enough finding express lanes down the line to put him in a hole. Wednesday night, Shea held Phillie flies just long and far enough to turn Jae into a Jaenius. Had he made one of these starts in Philadelphia's Legal Immigrants Bank Park, he'd have been detained by the INS for entering the country under false pretenses. ("This line on your green card says you're a pitcher, but the line on the scoreboard gives us reason to suspect you're lying.")

Still, it's one of those decisions you want to argue with because he was the Weong guy in the right place when the Mets needed him. Seo sure has pitched well in spurts since 2003. He could be on the cover of Spurts Illustrated and there'd be no jinx because he also pitches horrendously in spurts. He's the perfect sixth starter in a five-man rotation.

Braden Looper hates leads. Hates 'em. I was wondering why Roberto Hernandez had to come out after a sparkling eighth. Just because? To get a saver a save? But having thought about it, I found a rationale. Benson isn't likely to go more than five Thursday afternoon. We'll need a bullpen. If we can save our best reliever for a key situation, that's not an altogether bad thing. Gosh, it's strange to admit the manager may know a thing or two more about baseball than I do.

Does Cliff Floyd have a nickname? A real one? In his wonderful The Old Ball Game, Frank Deford suggests "perhaps the greatest loss to television, to the utter visualization of sport at the expense of imagination, is the disappearance of the nickname." Bully! Let's get our leftfielder a proper sobriquet.

God? Blasphemous...to our guy. Reasonable people can debate the existence of God. Who doesn't believe in Cliff at this point?
King Floyd? Groove me, baby...to the tune of twenty consecutive games thus far.
Uncle Floyd? Remember the faux kiddie-show host who ran a low-budget daily hootfest out of Channel 68 in Jersey? I loved Uncle Floyd, but Cliff is high-priced talent and suddenly worth it.
Floyd the Barber? Ooooohhhh...Randy...I think I extended my hitting streak off you... And Cliff's not cutting it close either.
Cliff the Mailman? Here's a little-known fact: If Cliff Floyd were a planet, he'd be the third-hottest planet in the solar system, and I have it on good authority that he may just pass Uranus before the season is over.
Don Cornelius? Indeed, Cornelius Clifford Floyd makes one pitcher after another an offer he can't refuse.
Death to Flying Things? Roll over Robert Ferguson and tell Jack Chapman the news. After Cliff's Leapin' Lizards! catch of Jason Michaels' sure-goner in the seventh, could any nickname be more utterly visual?

As a public service, we will present from time to time as schadenfreude permits the New York Yankee Collapse-O-Meter, tracking 2005 vis-à-vis two other Yankee campaigns that followed crushing post-season defeats.

NEW YORK YANKEE COLLAPSE-O-METER
Through 28 Games
1965: 12-16 (Final Record: 77-85)
1982: 12-16 (Final Record: 79-83)
2005: 11-17 (Final Record: ??-???)

Remember: The New York Yankees are baseball.

One of my favorite moments from last year's ALCS (The Mets were out of it! It was against the Yankees! It was just postseason baseball -- It didn't MEAN anything!) came after Keith Foulke preserved a decidedly shaky save in Game 6. As he lined up to slap hands with his teammates, who looked a little weak in the knees, he grinned broadly and announced, "Well, that got interesting."

Tonight got interesting.

This sounds ungrateful, but while Jae Seo's much-improved location, better smarts around the strike zone and apparent decision to accept coaching are all wonderful things, that sounded like somewhat sketchy one-hit ball. Balls that got hit awful hard just stayed in and unlikely fielders made really good plays -- except for the small matter of the results, it didn't seem night and day removed from his lackluster start in D.C. So don't count me among those ready to take to the barricades because Seo is going back to Norfolk. (Of course I'd send Glavine and/or Zambrano there instead if that were possible.) Nor would I have been that up in arms if Victor Diaz were Virginia-bound. (He's not -- Royce Ring got his walking papers.) Victor has some more fielding lessons to learn, not to mention getting a fair amount better at staying up to date on what's going on around him. Granted, it seems questionable that he has anything to learn at the plate in AAA -- pitchers have adjusted to him and one hopes tonight was him starting to adjust back -- but playing every day in AAA seems more conducive to learning than riding the bench in the Show.

Unless, of course, we trade Cameron. It's kind of nice to think that the Yankees desperately need a center fielder and we're about to have two of them, including the one they should have employed. Sorry Cash, we'd love to help you out, but this farm system of yours looks like the Island of Misfit Toys. Call us in a few drafts -- if you're still around.

The dessert accompanying tonight's game was various Mets being quotable. (Oh, and watching YES.) First was Floyd admitting that his jog to the fence on Jason Michaels' non-homer was "a courtesy run-back" for Seo on a ball he thought was gone, after which Clifford thought to himself, "Oh crap, I'm going to have to jump and try to catch that." Seo (through a translator) said all the right things about helping the team, blah blah blah, and Randolph got in a not-bad crack about Seo's demotion: "Maybe if he threw a no-hitter, I might have had second thoughts. Certainly a perfect game, that's really impressive."

In my baseball universe, all these zingers would be worth at least a game in the standings.