Whoa.

The Pirates may be the Pirates -- add "the same overeager young player getting thrown out trying to stretch a two-out double twice in one game" to the list of things I'd never seen in baseball -- but every fifth day from here on out, I want no part of them. Zach Duke is awesome, man. Evil curveballs, good heat, excellent location, fearless. And tricky -- he unveiled a slider in the fourth inning of a no-hit bid that left Cliff Floyd shaking his head somewhere between admiration and anger, like he best beware or in the seventh young Mr. Duke might find a knuckleball in his apparently bottomless bag of tricks.

At least this wasn't the usual script of a shaking-in-his-boots rookie bringing in an ERA north of 5 and then beating us like rented mules. The kid was just good. He even looks like a lot like a young Paul Wilson, though I hope that's no harbinger of his future.

On our side, well, just tip your cap. Victor was bad -- he's alternated good starts and bad starts for nearly a month now, which has got to stop -- but even good wasn't going to get it done tonight. Which left it a night for scoreboard-watching. Marlins won, Phillies and Nats obediently split their doubleheader, and our good friends the Brewers overcome the Astros (with the Antichrist on the mound, no less). Could've been worse.

Three out. Forty-two to play. That's doable, ain't it?

Did I hold my breath when Beltran stepped to the plate? Hell yes. Did I hold it when he raced toward home and it looked like there might be a play at the plate? Double hell yes.

I was proud to see that Met fans suspended their half-season of hazing to give Beltran a standing O. (Not to turn this into a discourse on booing, but Carlos has tried his hardest, played hurt earlier in the year-- admirable even if perhaps not wise -- and his stats haven't been Rich Rodriguez-level hideous, so enough was enough long ago.) But I was prouder to see that he turned in an absolutely terrific game -- one that purists and small-ball lovers ought to clutch to their hearts. Over at MetsGeek, Matt Gelb has a great article using CBS Sportsline Game Charts to show how disciplined Beltran was on a night when just showing up was worthy of applause. Jose Reyes and Victor Diaz would do well to take a look at that final diagram.

Oddly, I also felt a bit sorry for Mike Gonzalez in the eighth -- knowing he was pitching to a man with a broken cheekbone in the first game back in his home park meant he had to cede the inner half of the plate or risk facing 25 Mets and a crowd turned into a mob. This pitching thing, it's hard enough as it is.

On the subject of redemption, that was a heck of a game for Aaron Heilman, and not just because I never want to see Braden Looper face the Pirates again. One of baseball's many joys and terrors is the way situations repeat, and like every other Met fan I flashed back to L.A. and Heilman coming into to relieve Zambrano last week. That turned into a disaster; this turned into a triumph. A little late for poor Victor, but critically important for Heilman's confidence, Willie's confidence in him, and (getting ahead of ourselves just a bit) Heilman's career arc going forward. Heilman may never develop a gunfighter stare and would probably look silly if he tried -- he always looks like a junior-high-school kid about to fail a German final -- but his tricky mix of pitches and their late movement can glower for themselves.

Oh, and we won the game. That was nice too.

* From the sublime to the trivial: Mike Jacobs, incidentally, won the Cyclones' inaugural game in Brooklyn on June 25, 2001, before a packed house of dignitaries and a borough full of ghosts. Good game, too: With two out in the ninth, Edgar Rodriguez smacked a two-run homer to tie it; in the 10th, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers walked Robert McIntyre intentionally to get to Jacobs, who'd struck out four times. Sac fly, ball game.

Hopefully Jacobs doesn't get Hietpas'd and gets an at-bat. And maybe gets some other '01 Cyclones for company -- Angel Pagan, Blake McGinley and Jason Scobie were all fairly significant members of that team, and some or all might get a look in September. Danny Garcia, an '01 Cyclone for a moment, has already come and gone, and a couple of other first-year Cyclones have at least had big-league cups of coffee elsewhere. Not a bad haul for a New York-Penn League roster.

Ever since you went all elegiac on Mike Piazza, he hasn't hit a home run. And now he's got a fractured hand.

Try toughlove next time. Or ballet .

Mike Jacobs, when he plays, will be the 768th Met ever. That's exactly 100 Mets since the end of 2001, 100 brand new players -- four rosters' worth -- to take the field in less than four years. Does that seem stable to you?

I don't think either of us ever commented on Doug Mientkiewicz's current injury, probably because it's hard to recall where one bizarre stay on the DL ended and where the next one began. He hurt himself butting bodies with Rickie Weeks in a Pyrrhically successful breakup of a DP. Next shot we saw of him, he was all gimp in the dugout. Then it was Doug...out.

It's not a knock on the guy to say I sort of haven't noticed his extended absence what with all the drama that's swirled about of late. I'm at the point where I don't expect to see Doug Mientkiewicz play for the Mets. Every time he does, it's a little gift, I suppose.

I actually heard myself call Glavine "Glavo" when he finished the seventh. I need to cut that stuff out.

Poor Royals. I mean, really, 18 in a row? Would it screw us up terribly if they sent Super Joe our way? I doubt KC's troubles are all his fault and there's no way he deserves to live through all that. (Tony LaRussa kept a pair of his shoes, you may have heard.) What harm could he do here? I read the other day that he and Kaz would go out for sushi on every road trip last year. Maybe Matsui misses his buddy.

Tike Redman hates us. I'm sure of it. Seeing Gerald Williams soaking up what he believes to be Prentice's roster spot probably just inflames his ire even more.

Did you shudder every time Carlos Beltran was in motion Wednesday night? That he didn't is to the better. Gary Cohen pretty much nominated him for Comeback Player of the Year (intraseason version) based on his first two plate appearances. Such an assessment seemed a little gun-jumping. Sure hope it's true, but one game at a time for Carlos, one game at a time for us.

We're 2-1/2 back of a playoff spot with 43 to play. That's a matter of public record. And it indicates nothing about final positioning.

I got so excited in late July 1997 when the Mets nosed ahead of the Marlins for a moment. "If the season ended today," I breathlessly told my apathetic sister, "the Mets would be in the playoffs."

Suzan, whose relationship to baseball was tied to resentment over non-Mets games airing on her favorite talk station, replied earnestly, "I wish the season ended today."

It's still the funniest thing she's ever said.