Apparently holding a post-game concert wasn't enough of a way to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Night. The Mets collectively played as if they were descended from the would-be 15th-century conquistador El Choko (he had almost all of Europe under his control when he decided his most splendid warrior should abandon the battle after throwing 78 pitches), while the Nationals were doing their best impression of El Kabong.

It was as if somebody hijacked the Ameriquest runs bell: Ka-BONGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

As for it being Dog Night, I had a feeling it would be a horrendous idea to permit those smelly, pathetic mutts into the ballpark.

But enough about our relievers.

Nobody except the Mets Walkoffs guy loves a walkoff win more than me, but this was ridiculous. If baseball had a commissioner who wasn't Bud Selig, I'd suggest he investigate how it's possible that a team capable of blowing an 8-0 seventh-inning lead to the lowest-scoring team in the National League also managed to gain ground in a Wild Card race that's tighter than the apple in Braden Looper's throat.

Look at us!
We're a contender!
We're two games out!
We've matched our high point for the year at four games above .500!

Something stinks here, but technically, we don't. In reality, we've got relievers who are incapable of protecting eight-run leads with nine outs to go, closers who can't close out two-run leads with one out to go, catchers with fractures who are sitting on the active roster, healthy starters who are left in limbo and a lineup that took a disco nap from the fourth through the ninth. By then, our laugher was long ago and it was far away.

Fortunately, we also have Chris Woodward. There aren't enough words to describe how grateful we should be for him. There aren't enough words because when Brian Schneider doubled in the tying run, I hurled the first thing handy in the general direction of the television and it happened to be a dictionary -- ironic in that my vocabulary had just been reduced to a single f-word.

We won. I'm totally disgusted.

I guess it was also Paradox Night.

Friday night's promotional handout was smart, compact and may even work the next time wet rain falls for real, but I prefer we let Jae Seo be our umbrella. He protects us against all kind of bad elements: Wilkerson, Vidro, Schneider...such unappealing sorts you should never encounter in a dark alley or a well-lit ballpark.

He also keeps Kaz Ishii far, far away.

It's a one-game winning streak for the Mets as well as for me -- 1-0 in the Stars & Stripes cap that I nearly left on the train home but, like the Mets and their need for a run, remembered to grab at almost the last minute.

How marvy it was to land on the right side of a shutout at Shea. Laurie and I continued our trail of tiers, this time landing in the upper deck, a fine place to take in a game of baseball and a view of Queens, even though I can never quite shake the feeling that I've volunteered for stadium steerage. Shea only has an upper deck, I believe, because it can't economically shove enough people in the lower levels. Reminds me of a bit Bruce McCulloch did on The Kids in the Hall in which he was a minimum-wage employee. I paraphrase: "Minimum wage? You mean you're paying me the very least allowable by law?"

If the Mets could stick their budget/tardy/non-alcoholic customers on the moon, I think they would.

But I'm not complaining, not really. We had a successful duel and I had an adequate knish (conceding to the first concession that didn't require an extended wait along the limited-assortment concourse) plus a middle-innings summit with one of our esteemed blolleagues. I don't want to drop any names, but let's just say that as soon as the Mets scored, he had to walk off to his assigned seat.

Quite a horse race, this Wild Card chase. Being in the upper deck means being at eye-level with the scoreboard, and being as much of a contender as we apparently are, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I wished for significance from every score. I wanted CIN's demolition of ARI to mean something other than a few sad ARIzonans. Maybe they'll still be despondent when we go out there. Though I was into it in principle, I couldn't get that much pleasure from SDP taking it to ATL since ATL is largely irrelevant to the standing of NYM. PIT, on the other hand, is to be congratulated on slamming PHI in the battle of PEN (yeah, I know it's PA but I'll bet the Shea scoreboard operator doesn't).

It was Irish Night. No great significance to it except one guy brought his bagpipes to the upper deck. Just him -- no band or corps or whatever more than one bagpipist constitutes. Laurie called bagpipes the worst instrument ever invented. I have yet to rank them, but there's an Awesomely Bad VH-1 countdown just waiting to be produced.