MetsGeek has a very nice examination of Kaz Matsui's Mets career by Damien Heath. Very nice as in "thorough, well-argued and persuasive," or even very nice as in "wicked intimidating with all those acronyms and sabermetric thingamabobs." Not very nice if you were hoping that newfangled stats might reveal TBKM isn't as bad as conventional stats show, or as he looks on the tube most every night.

There aren't stats to measure the fact that TBKM seems like a good guy who's trying hard, might be hurt and could use some love from the home stands -- there are only the statistical measures trying to summarize how he's doing between those ol' white lines. I'm a wannabe new-stats guy trapped in the body of an old-stats dinosaur, so I only wish I understood half this stuff. But I am bright enough to grasp the essential, inescapable and unwelcome conclusion: Kaz is, well, bad.

To quote Chris Rock: "They say life is short. No it's not. Life is long." The season is long, too. Getting worked up over 21 LOBs over two nights of a 162-game season probably isn't worth the toll it takes on one's blood pressure.

But over the last two nights, the Mets have scored four runs...and left 21 runners on base. That ain't right. That ain't pennant-contending baseball, either.

The Astros have some good pitchers who bothered to make the trip to New York, so let's give a little credit to Roy Oswalt (though not for being the punk of plunk; Cliff'll find ya, big shot) and Brandon Backe, but what happened Wednesday night with the frequent lapses of scoring shouldn't have happened. Not if we're serious about winning.

Nobody in this division seems all that serious, which is to our benefit. The longness of the season will shake out somebody and turn them into a prince among frogs, presumably. Who that will be remains a mystery. First-place Nationals? Improbable? Wasn't it a few weeks ago that the nattering nabobs were dismissing Charlie Manuel as a Phillie Phlop? Wasn't it right about then that the Braves and the Marlins were obviously about to pull away from the rest of us clowns? Yet we're all still in it and nobody continues to know anything.

But I do know that you gotta win games that are winnable, no matter how the odds conspire against you. A team of destiny finds a way to beat the offensively tepid Astros in its own ballpark. A team of destiny stitches together a few runs for Victor Zambrano who (I may just faint) deserved a better fate. A team of destiny looks back a few months from now and points to the night in June when Piazza took one off the wrist and the bench was reduced to two players but we managed to pull it out anyway. A team of destiny marvels at how it limped its way through a half-dozen nagging aches and pains to a victory that healed all wounds for the time being.

And a team that's seriously ready to seriously contend takes two of three from the Astros before the third game starts.

The season is long. Patience is another matter altogether.