Well, the most important thing is who El Duque isn't: He isn't Jose Lima or Jeremi Gonzalez. That makes me happy. Yeah, I'd seen Julio's stuff and thought big thoughts, but teams with 2 1/2 starters can't be picky, and as we're currently constituted Julio was a reliever searching for a role. And before anyone asks, who cares that Kris Benson is an Oriole? Beyond the fact that I don't ever remember calling you up and yelling, "Greg! We gotta go to Shea! BENSON'S PITCHING!", beyond the relief I feel at not hearing the beat guys repeatedly ask Carlos Delgado if it bothers him that Anna thinks he's a traitor and a flag burner, if we had a time machine built expressly to undo trades, I think we'd be off to Tampa Bay, Cincinnati and Anaheim during the Nixon administration, not Baltimore.

Granted, El Duque was once a Yankee, and the Empire's Guild of Vile Propagandists made it sound like he escaped Cuba on two logs wrapped together with the twine from a baseball, when in fact it was a 30-foot fishing boat with a 480-horsepower diesel engine. But you know what? That was a long time ago, and putting on our colors absolves him of any misdeeds that can now only be glimpsed in the rearview mirror. (Funny what a change of laundry can do.)

But here's the least-important thing about El Duque, Met, that pleased me the most: I too saw the news on SNY, with Omar live. I love that we've got one of these shiny network things of our own, so I don't have to find out about trades by squinting at the bottom of the ESPN ticker. I love that they were trumpeting it like Mideast peace. (Isn't it?) I could get used to it.

Oh yeah, and I love that after METS TRADE JORGE JULIO I didn't see AND LASTINGS MILLEDGE.

El Duque's a Met. Jorge Julio isn't. Trade between Mets and Diamondbacks nets us an ex-Yank icon. Injuries and pennant races make strange bedfellows.

Omar's on SNY explaining that Orlando Hernandez isn't 50 and isn't washed up. He's certainly experienced in big situations. So is Christy Mathewson, but Hernandez is still active. Looked good for the White Sox last postseason, so I'll buy it.

Beats unknown quantities and quantities we shouldn't have gotten to know in the first place. I have to be careful as I tend to think pitchers I've heard of have to be pretty good, but El Duque (we can use his nickname since he's, uh, one of us now) I've seen. He might do us some good. He can't be any worse than Lima or Gonzalez. He's supposed to be better than his 2006 bloated ERA. Aren't we all?

Haven't gleaned whether he'll jump in ahead of Jeremi tomorrow. If not, I'd still throw Heilman out there for one start because it is against the Phillies. But now Aaron's anchored to the pen presumably for the long haul.

Had come to have marginal faith in Julio. Marginal. Glad he won't stick around long enough to smash that to bits. There was a window when Mel Rojas wasn't so bad either. It hardly matters now, but Jorge Julio exceeded expectations here, the expectations being nothing but disaster. Didn't grow an attachment to him, but, you know...good for him.

El Duque's a Met. Good for us?

I've got another Jason in my life. He's also a Mets fan and I also met him online and he's also very, very sharp; I have good luck with Jasons that way. The one I'm talking about here sent me the gift of prescience Tuesday:

Today marks 7 years since The Schilling Game. Which marks the day when I knew for sure that the '99 team was going to be a special team. And here we are playing the Phillies again. Let's hope that means good mojo...

I'd say Mr. Mojo is risin', wouldn't you? Mr. Beltran, Mr. Reyes, Mr. Oliver and all the Messrs. Met are plenty aloft these days and nights.

Mostly nights.

Have I mentioned that was one delightfully freaky win? I don't mean this was one delightfully freaky win. Don't misinterpret: At 14 pitchers used, 15 Met hits, 16 innings played, 17 runs total and 18 unconscionable teases that the end was near, it was delighfully freaky to the extreme. But I mean I must have mentioned some variation on "that was one delightfully freaky win" about a dozen times this season. Nationals, Padres, Giants, Pirates, Braves, Skanks...what's another breathtaking, heartstopping, pulsepounding, headscratching baseball game for the ages?

Someday, perhaps when the events of 2006 are known in full, this, like that day in May 1999, will be obscured by an incredible September and an unbelievable October. Maybe this, like the Sunday at Shea against Philly when Curt Schilling entered the bottom of the ninth up 4-0 and left it down, out and Oleruded 4-5, will become a footnote to another Pratt fall, another grand slam singular autumn — recalled by heart only by impassioned defenders of the Faith.

In a season that's 44 games old and already larded with surprise endings and shocking continuations, who would be surprised or shocked if we forgot a chapter here or there? How much more are we expected to remember?

We must remember this:

• Down 0-2, we tied it on homers by Wright and Floyd.
• Down 2-6, we chipped and chipped back to 5-6.
• Down 5-8...well, I wasn't thinking comeback or even tie. I was thinking about a Mets-Phillies game from 15 years ago, kind of the inverse of the Schilling game. It went only ten innings but it schlepped on for nearly five hours. The Mets had innumerable chances to win but chose to lose. It was the gakkiest of gakoff losses and that, I must admit, is where I thought we were headed again. Unlike my auxiliary Jason, I lack imagination.
• Down 5-8, the Mets would lack gak. We got to within 6-8, and then noted power hitter Jose Reyes golfed — eagled, Philadelphia — one to right.
• 8-8. A highly improbable 8-8 at that.

And so it stayed and stayed and stayed. Except for his being a Phillie, I really admired the hell out of Ryan Madson. Wanted to snap him like a twig, but he would have just regained his form and retired Carlos Delgado. He's my Schaefer Player of the Game...would be, except for his being a Phillie.

The guy I was rooting for to end it — understanding that I'm not picky and anybody we traded for in the course of the evening whose last name wasn't Bin Laden or Jeter would have won my unyielding affection with a timely, well-placed single — was Carlos Beltran. I think he's been, in his librarylike fashion, our best player for weeks. Not perfect, not noticed, not lucky (I think he got his hand back on the bag, but my thoughts don't count for spit), but steady. Even in a slump, he's whisper-quietly gotten his share of big hits and nice catches. The only thing missing was something that isn't missing anymore.

Good for the man I referred to as Belly in a fit of nickname auditioning. Certainly had fire within it in the sixteenth. That appellation came somewhere back in the early innings, or what archaeologists will no doubt refer to as the Trachsezoic Epoch, a period of spottily recorded history that few will remember given its utter irrelevance as it pertained to the Evolution of Met, a phenomenon that went something like this on May 23, 2006:

He oozed out of the muck.
He learned to crawl.
He straightened up a bit.
And now he walks, head held high.
Walks off with a win that looked impossible for hours on end, that is.

Suddenly, I'm so very tired.

But not of games like these.

...Steve Trachsel was bad.
...Gavin Floyd didn't get a rainout.
...Pat Burrell was around to kill us.
...Sal Fasano had short hair and no 70s porn-king 'stache.
...Steve Trachsel was worse.
...Paul Lo Duca couldn't field a one-hop throw to the plate.
...David Bell was tolling for thee, me and everyone else in orange and blue.
...Julio Franco was running bases like a rookie.
(Heck, it feels like Julio Franco was a rookie when this thing began.)
...Jose Reyes was a slugger.
...the Braves were taking batting practice somewhere out west.
...Ryan Madson had given up imagining the next time he'd get to throw 100 pitches in a night.
...Billy Wagner hadn't faced his old team.
...Carlos Beltran let himself come off a bag.
...Jose Reyes wasn't quite slugger enough.
...I could see straight.
...Darren Oliver thought he might get to start Thursday.
...it was still Tuesday.
...Lo Duca and Fasano could feel their legs.
...the Braves were still playing somewhere out west.
...the Phils were three games back.
...Madson still had Pitch #522 in his hand.

Hey! Alay! Welcome to the Show! You're going nine!