It was a nice surprise to hear from you. You told me you didn't think you'd have online access while away, so your post this morning may have been a happy accident of string, tin cans and what not. If so, this is probably falling on deaf cyberears, but I have a small request for you if you can hear me:

Get your ass back to New York immediately. You're killin' us here.

I mean it. Turn the truck around. Never mind the Portland Sea Dogs. Whatever they've got up there, we can match it. Poland Spring is readily available and I could probably arrange to have a black bear wander by if you still a need a taste of Maine.

You left in May and the Mets lost every game in your absence. They lost last night. Your job as a Mets fan and the non-jinxy half of Metsdom's most vigilant blog (one hundred consecutive days of posting as of today) is to, at the very least, cross the New York state line by Saturday at 7:05 PM and stay on this side of it until whenever Sunday's game ends. Then you can go back and drink water and look at bears or whatever the hell it is they do in Maine.

The family will understand. If they've understood you this long, they'll understand this.

GO! NOW!

Hey, didja miss me?

[Jace ignores silence.]

Up here in Maine, I was behind the wheel of a big pig of a U-Haul truck as game time neared. Flipping around the AM dial, I was able to pick up the Portland Sea Dogs playing the New Hampshire Fisher Cats (at least I think that's who they were playing). Only they weren't really playing, they were in a rain delay and waiting for instructions. So they decided to replay a week-old Sea Dogs game until the real game's fate became clear. Fair enough -- heck, I'd be pretty thrilled if next rain delay FAN replayed some game from the archives, the earlier the better. I'd only just started to warm to these anonymous players going through their week-old motions when the announcer came back on and said the Sea Dogs/Fisher Cats game (which sounds kind of like a kid's book, come to think of it) had been called, so goodnight and see you tomorrow for the first game of a double-header. And that was that. Kind of strange, but that's how they do it in Sea Dog Nation, I suppose.

I scanned over to WFAN, which by now was a sea of static, interrupted periodically by blasts of skull-cracking interference vaguely related to power lines and accelerating -- a mess from which would sometimes emerge strings of barely intelligible words. But hey, it was 7:05, so you know perfectly welll what I did. The early innings went something like this: "Zambrano...faced the minimum...play Cameron didn't make...." I was able to sort of tell what had happened based on little scraps of Gary/Howie.

I didn't really mind this AM-radio archaeology -- I've done this innumerable times while driving at the outer limits of radio range, and too many nights when I was living in D.C., aided by antennae made out of hangers, crackpot signal amplifiers and other desperate strategems. Reminders of simpler times and all that. (And driving a U-Haul in rural Maine doesn't present a smorgasbord of alternative entertainments.) When I finally got to my folks' house a little before eight, I flipped on their AM radio for more occasional snippets of Gary/Howie, but didn't pay very close attention. Besides wanting to be at least a vaguely good son, I knew the game would come in strongly enough to be readily understandable after the sun went down, which should give me the last couple of innings to hear.

Let the record show that it got dark enough for reception to become reliable at the exact moment Ramon Castro was chugging home too late to score from second on a double. In other words, I heard about 10% of the part of the game where Victor was masterful and we were a mighty team whose errors were worthy of the kangaroo court but not otherwise fatal. The part of the game where we fired shotgun blasts at our feet until Humberto Cota finally knocked over our bloody, expiring bulk? I heard 100% of that.

Goddamn Mets.

The Mets played in Pittsburgh Friday night versus the struggling Pirates.
The Mets played in Pittsburgh Friday night versus the struggling Pirates.

It was a beautiful night for baseball at glorious PNC Park.
It was a beautiful night for baseball at glorious PNC Park.

The Mets jumped out to an early lead.
The Mets jumped out to an early lead.

Victor Zambrano pitched eight brilliant innings.
Victor Zambrano pitched eight brilliant innings.

Despite some questionable baserunning, there was no stopping the Mets.
Bad baserunning was just the beginning of the Mets' troubles.

Ramon Castro had hit a big home run and contributed to some insurance tallies in the top of the ninth.
Ramon Castro got confused on a ball that hit off the wall and with some help from Manny Acta got himself thrown out at home to kill what should have been a bigger inning.

Aaron Heilman came in in the ninth to preserve the win for Zambrano.
Heilman didn't look at all sharp and managed to load the bases.

Braden Looper entered with the bases loaded and two outs. He had a four-run lead and needed to retire just a single batter, a simple task for such an accomplished closer.
Braden Looper couldn't get one fucking out.

Looper toyed with the overmatched Tike Redman.
Looper couldn't get his fastball past freaking Tike Redman who fouled off pitch after pitch until, on the twelfth pitch, he singled home two runs.

Up 5-3, Looper would close the game against ex-Met Matt Lawton.
Freaking Lawton, who never should've been a Met in the first place, drove a sinking liner into left.

Cliff Floyd, overlooked as an All-Star but playing great defense lately, moved in on the ball and ended the game with a neat catch.
Cliff Floyd, looking like a goddamn Little Leaguer out there, first seemed to lose sight of the ball then tried to dive for it and then let it go by him which allowed the tying run to score.

In the top of the tenth, the Mets took the measure of Jose Mesa and regained the lead off the shaky veteran reliever.
It took all of five pitches for Mesa to get the Mets in order.

Looper regained his composure when he started the bottom of the tenth.
Why the fuck was Looper on the mound to start the tenth? Ohmigod, it was like watching Byung-Hyun Kim out there!

With one out, Rob Mackowiak grounded out to second, Cairo to Offerman.
Cairo freaking rushed his throw and it sailed ten feet wide of Offerman who never should be allowed to play first base under any circumstances. It went into the camera box and Mackowiak wound up on second. Natch.

With two out, the Mets elected to walk Daryle Ward and pitch to the little-known Humberto Cota. The percentages said this was the correct move.
Humberto Cota, whoever the fuck he is, singled home the winning run. The Mets, having led 5-1 with two out in the ninth lost 6-5 in ten. According to ESPN, it was the first time the Mets had blown a lead of that size at that juncture of a game since Neil Allen gave up a game-winning grand slam to Bo Diaz in 1983.

The win sent the Mets on the roll many of their fans said was just a matter of time in coming, making the predictions of those who wanted to "throw in the towel" on 2005 seem premature.
Empty the freaking linen closet.