Wanna play in October? You gotta win blowouts and squeakers, extra-inning games and rain-shortened affairs, day games after night games and the tail end of doubleheaders. Included somewhere in that list are games that appeared headed for extra innings except the enemy reliever makes a nice pickup and unleashes disaster. Gary Majewski had a tailor-made double play in front of him, except he threaded the needle so perfectly that Royce Clayton tipped the ball over Jose Vidro's shoulder, ensuring the Nats went home in rags.

An attaboy for Victor Zambrano, who finally pitched aggressively and saw that (whodathunkit?) good things happen when you do. At least for one game Victor wasn't running away from his own stuff; that first-inning K of Nick Johnson with a fastball in on the hands gave me hope that I might not have to spend the evening swearing hideously and throwing things. Still, I kept thinking about "Bull Durham" and Nuke LaLoosh. Not that Victor is anything like the Tim Robbins character in most respects: He's old, timid, doesn't seem to be having any fun and as far as I can tell isn't sleeping with Susan Sarandon. But like Nuke, he needs a catcher who will tell him exactly what to do, and smack him in the nose until he stops doing anything else. Rick Peterson's 10 minutes have become an eternity because Zambrano isn't ever going to learn to trust his own stuff. OK, fine -- since Paul Lo Duca trusts Zambrano's stuff, Plan B is that Victor learns to trust Paul Lo Duca.

Well, at least for a night it worked -- it was no coincidence that when SNY caught up with Lo Duca after all was said and done, the first thing out of the catcher's mouth was praise for Zambrano.

Can one small step for Zam be a giant leap for Metkind? Here's hoping. And in the meantime? The rose goes in the front, big guy.

If April has produced the template for the rest of the season — fly extraordinarily high, descend without necessarily crashing and then up, up and away in our beautiful balloon — I'll take it.

No broom for sweeping, but no Electrolux for sucking either. The difference between the Mets and the Braves on Sunday came down to one attachment: Atlanta is attached to Jeff Francoeur and we're not. He brought his rake to the park and that was that. Some days you have to decompress like a leaf blower and move on.

So it's only a 2-1 visit to the heretofore Horrible House and only a 6-4 road trip that included two stops three time zones away and only a 16-8 record and only a 6-game lead over everybody.

If only always felt like this, I think we'd all want to drink alone come October. Oops, did I mention the O-Month? Too soon? Of course it is. Let's not end the suspense even if the only two teams to enjoy greater April leads were the '77 Dodgers and '01 Mariners and they both extended their seasons beyond Game 162. Never mind that they didn't win ultimate prizes or that the previous Mets team to secure 16 April victories was the 2002 edition. That bunch won 59 more from May through September, so let's not get carried away.

Instead of the big picture, a few smaller snapshots:

• I sure hope Cliff Floyd starts hitting. He's shown signs. He's lined a ton of hard fouls and atom balls. He's had a handful of bouncers and bloopers fall in, the kind that are supposed to change your luck. Yet he's driving from Georgia to New York in the slow lane of the Eisenhower Interstate System. I'm watching Cliff lunge and flail and I think back to Bernard Gilkey in '97 and Howard Johnson in '92, two Met outfielders coming off huge seasons and not coming close to repeating them. HoJo got hurt and never recovered. Gilkey needed glasses or something. Cliff is doing more than either of them in their dark forest period. However many wins Glavine winds up with, he must insist that his Cooperstown plaque specifies one of them was made possible by the mitt and moxie of Cliff Floyd. His two catches on Saturday night — one off Pratt, one off Francoeur (a sneak preview of his Sunday matinee raking) — were the difference between "same old Turner Field curse" and "no more Turner Field curse". It's a team game and Cliff is contributing to the team in almost every way he can. Here's hoping he can contribute in his most characteristic way. Though he's filling the Anderson Hernandez all-field/no-hit role with aplomb, I don't think that's what he wants to be doing.

• Carlos Beltran can run and hit. We persevered and practically thrived in his absence. Our world didn't end while he healed...a good advertisement for caution amid the long season.

• The heart of the order back intact may mean less pressure for David Wright, a young man who has been issued a ridiculous amount of it by well-meaning folk such as ourselves. Metstradamus offers the only kind of take he is capable of producing, an excellent one, on how our Wright-loving instincts and interests are best-served.

• The untouchables need to be embraced. Jose Valentin hasn't hit for spit, I grant you, but didja see the take-out check he laid on Marcus Giles to break up a DP? Applaud that. Jorge Julio, stray gopher notwithstanding, put in two more solid innings. Get behind that. Kaz Matsui saved the day throughout the trip. Put your hands together for that. Victor Zambrano hasn't done a damn thing well, but he's one-fifth of the rotation. Ya like your first-place Mets? Like all your first-place Mets. Not one of these fellas deserves to be booed Monday night. They return 2-1 from Atlanta, 6-4 from the road, 16-8 from April, 6 up from everybody. These are your returning baseball heroes. Greet them all as such. You're nuts if you don't.

Unsolicited Metsosphere Plug: Piazza, Cameron, Jacobs, et al are gone, but we have one Mike we can still count on, the Mike who writes Mike's Mets. This Mike, making Connecticut safe for Mets fans since 2005, is an incredibly solid read when it comes to keeping up on everything in our world. Make him a part of your Metsian rounds.