The split-squad Mets fell to pieces today. 9-0 loss in Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore. 13-1 drubbing by Washington at St. Lucie. Everywhere you looked, the Mets were out in farce.

Sele got rocked.
Park got rocked.
Sosa got rocked.

After Lima, can we stop with the four-letter pitchers? (It's been ten springs since Rick Reed made himself gloriously apparent.)

Maybe it's just as well that the journeymen hurl to their notices and thus can be told to hit the road. Except it seems we're not so deep we can dismiss every second-rater we've invited to camp.

Yes, it's still just Spring Training. But as encouraging as Maine, Perez and Pelfrey are, there's a real hole at the back end of the bullpen, and in this six-inning world, that's no small detail. Smith wasn't so hot today and Burgos was ice cold last night. And we're still not hitting with any kind of consistency.

A composite of 22-1 today on top of blowing a 4-0 last night...all to projected lousy teams. It doesn't matter on paper, but I was just getting used to assuming we were good for the long haul.

I know we long-timers like to pat ourselves on the back for having stuck with the Mets through all that dreadful thin so we can revel in the relatively recent thick, but I don't want to start earning grief miles again. I want thick and I want it to stick. That's not a scouting report so much as a panicky tantrum. Gads, don't turn this into another [insert season that was supposed to be good but wasn't; we have several from which to choose]. I can't go back.

I can, of course, but I'd really prefer to avoid that trip for a decade or two.

The second day of March Metness proceeded with its usual mix of the expected and the unexpected. Let's just say some brackets are already looking better than others after completion of the first phase of the Don Aase Round.

Here's who played Friday and who will still be playing Sunday for the right to go on to the Rick Sweet 16.

MIRACLE REGIONAL
The Ball Off The Wall (6) vs Ten-Run Inning (11)
Ten-Run Inning ('00) was feeling confident. It had just tied the game and Mike Piazza was coming up with the promise of a laser-beam home run to left. However, Mike wasn't facing Terry Mulholland. He was facing the most pixie-dusted defensive play in regular-season Mets history. Alas, Piazza's shot hit, yup, the top of the wall and bounded straight into Jones' glove. He relayed it to Garrett who relayed it to Hodges who put the tag and on the signature big inning Mets history.

Banner Day (3) vs Say Goodbye To America (14)
Willie Mays gave the most memorable speech in Mets history, uttering one of the greatest retirement lines by any baseball player at any time. But Willie could have orated, driven in the crucial run in Game Five of the '73 NLCS, flown to Oakland and actually caught a couple of balls in the time it took any Banner Day parade — even one from the really sad years — to complete its trek around the track. The perfect expression of fan devotion outlasts the perfect expression of farewell and takes its placards to the next round against The Ball Off The Wall.

Marvelous Marv (7) vs Al Lang (10)
The Mets shared Al Lang (Field, then Stadium) with the Cardinals for the first 26 springs of their existence. Marv Throneberry spent time as property of the Orioles, the Athletics and the Yankees. But the ultimate cult Met belonged to nobody but us. The Mets ditched Al Lang for the wilderness of Florida's east coast. Nobody has ever replaced Marvelous Marv in Met lore. Throneberry's a winner.

Rheingold The Dry Beer (2) vs Generation K (15)
Longtime and quintessential Mets sponsor Rheingold offered the 10 Minute Head...or a foam that lasted longer than Izzy, Pulse and Paul lasted as a unit. The ultimate Met disappointment is flattened by the ultimate Met beverage. Come Sunday, it's beer versus Marv in a battle of classic Met four-letter words.

MAGIC REGIONAL
Who Let The Dogs Out? (6) vs Mettle The Mule (11)
In an all-animal act, the De Roulet daughters made an ass of themselves, unveiling the most unlikely mascot in the history of the Mets. But at this, arguably the organization's lowest moment, a mule named Mettle was just what the doctor ordered...assuming the 1979 Mets weren't too cheap to pay a doctor. The fight song of the 2000 National League champions absorbs the upset after ill-advisedly slowing into a trot.

Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? (3) vs Scioscia (14)
Mike Scioscia's ninth-inning home run continues to represent the worst letdown in Mets history. But losing the 1988 NLCS was cake next to the 1962 season as chronicled by Jimmy Breslin. The sometimes stubborn columnist's timeless work bears down against the legendarily stubborn mule Mettle on Sunday.

Jose! Jose! Jose! Jose! (7) vs LaGuardia (10)
Planes taking off and landing at a major air transportation hub doesn't make for the best accompaniment to a baseball game, but it is a signature sound of Shea and will probably be so at Citi, too. The jets makes opposing batters step out of the box. But Jose Reyes and his very own sing-song chant unnerves opposing pitchers. Is there a flight that lands at LaGuardia as fast as Jose rounded the bases in 2006? Nope. Jose took off and was never topped.

Home Run Apple (2) vs Bill Shea's Floral Horseshoe (15)
No surer sign of a new season than Bill Shea or, since his 1991 passing, his family members showing up at their eponymous stadium with the good luck arrangement. Every manager who's managed Opening Day since 1964 has been greeted with this simplest of gestures. It's great for the florist business, too. Home Run Apple, on the other hand, once misplaced its leaf. And it sits at the outer edge of a horseshoe-shaped ballpark named Shea. There's just too much karma to mess with Bill. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our biggest upset of the tournament to date. Bill Shea's Floral Horseshoe topples Home Run Apple and will run up against Jose! Jose! Jose! Jose! on Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!


BELIEVE REGIONAL
The Happy Recap (1) vs Michael Sergio (16)
Michael Sergio parachuted into Shea Stadium before Game Six of the 1986 World Series. Several hours later, Bob Murphy was delivering the happiest Happy Recap imaginable. Sergio is quintessential Mets trivia. The Happy Recap is quintessential Mets. No contest.

Diamond Club (8) vs John Rocker (9)
Elitist Mets insitution taking on anti-Mets buffoon. Elitism has no place at Shea Stadium. Buffoonery, even the vilest kind, is a baseball tradition. If it's a choice of having somebody looking down their nose at you versus having somebody to look down your nose upon...Rocker takes this one. The buffoon figures to be a vast underdog to Murph in their Sunday clash.

The Sign Man (5) vs Revised Yearbook (12)
Two prime outlets for information at Shea go head to head. Karl Ehrhardt hoists the message "There Are No Words". But Lindsey Nelson reminds us our baseball library won't be complete without the revised edition of our 1976 yearbook which is full of great new pictures and words. Who's going to argue with Lindsey Nelson? Revised Yearbook upsets The Sign Man.

Seinfeld (4) vs Yo La Tengo (13)
Forty-four years later, it still may be the best anecdote in Mets history, the story of how Richie Ashburn learned to yell "I Got It!" in Spanish in order to call of Elio Chacon, only to have monolingual Frank Thomas not understand him and run him over. It sounds like a plot out of Seinfeld, the television show with more and truer Met plotlines than any other. Ashburn's in the Hall of Fame, but Keith Hernandez is Keith Hernandez. Seinfeld in a close one. Next stop: Revised Yearbook.

AMAZIN' REGIONAL
Mr. Met (1) vs Wednesday Night Massacre (16)
Mets fans everywhere grimaced when M. Donald Grant traded Tom Seaver and Dave Kingman on June 15, 1977. But Mr. Met just kept on smiling. You think one lousy night is going to get to the quintessential team symbol? Mr. Met keeps his smile pasted on.

Mayor Lindsay (8) vs Serval Zipper (9)
John Lindsay had a topsy-turvy 1969. After a massive snowstorm crippled Queens that February, the Manhattan-minded mayor was slow to get the easternmost borough of New York City dug out. But he was sure fast to find his way to Flushing to have his picture taken celebrating with the champions of the National League East, the National League and, finally the world. It's said that association with New York's baseball finest got him re-elected, making Mayor Lindsay the quintessential Met-glomming politician. Just over Shea Stadium's left field fence, the Serval Zipper sign — the ultimate Met neighborhood landmark — was just thawing out from Lindsay's neglect. Politicians have to pay the price for dissing Queens eventually. Serval unzips Hizzoner and looks to button up Mr. Met on Sunday.

Pete Rose (5) vs Ed Sudol (12)
No opposing player wore the mantle of Met Villain as long and as hard as Peter Edward Rose, not after his infamous brawl with Buddy Harrelson in the 1973 playoffs. No umpire wore the chest protector as long around the Mets as Ed Sudol, at least not in any given games. Sudol called balls and strikes and kept calling them in the Mets' 23-, 24- and 25-inning losses in 1964, 1968 and 1974, respectively. In a test of endurance, just about every Mets fan still hates Pete Rose. Even Sudol — officiating left field after Rose trotted out to his position in Game Three — couldn't eject that emotion. Rose fancies himself a winner, and in this case he's correct.

1964 World's Fair (4) vs Called Strike Three (13)
Of the countless third strikes taken by Mets batters in the franchise's first 45 seasons, one looms over the rest: the very last one. Called Strike Three ended the 2006 National League Championship Series in a most unsatisfying fashion. In the mind's eye, Carlos Beltran is still standing and looking at Adam Wainwright's ungodly breaking pitch. The 1964 World's Fair, which will forever be linked with Shea in the way Beltran and Wainwright are glued together...well, it was more fun than that. And baseball's supposed to be fun. Fun carries the day here. We'll see if Peace Through Understanding has any effect on the rambunctious Rose in their Sunday matchup.