The Mets played like a champ today. Or, more accurately, looked like a load of big brown.

No offense to the horse that took a couple of minutes to do in Louisville what the Mets couldn't come close to achieving over three-and-a-half very long hours in Phoenix. Our nag stayed a nose behind for a few innings, but eventually finished six lengths back and completely out of the money.

Quick, Billy Wagner — say something helpful about Mike Pelfrey and his dry fingers.

On the plus side, the Mets aren't just taking a dive. They're taking many dives. Ryan Church dives. David Wright dives. Sometime they come up with a ball or keep a runner in place. Sometime it's just a matter of belly-flopping into the abyss. But their efforts are appreciated, however sporadically they pay off.

Except for one well-pulled swing by Carlos Delgado and one impressive gut check by Aaron Heilman (were his shoulders always so stiff that he had to shake them loose before every pitch or is it just the weight of the world crushing him?), nothing. Nothing about this apparently reluctant Fox game of the week — we swear, Sprint Cup Racing from Richmond is coming up next — indicates the 15-13 Mets entered this game a single Brian Wilson mistake from first place. This was the best team in the National League versus what is, at this moment, the eighth-best, a unit that is glaringly middle-of-the-pack, mediocre and, because it's such a damningly accurate Metric, 70-70 since last May 30.

They're not thoroughbreds, but perhaps the Mets might give Nascar a whirl. It seems to feature lots of going in circles.

P.S. Help us Johan-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope.

Nah, it doesn't save Willie Randolph's job in my view -- going one game over .500 since last May 30 isn't nearly enough for that, particularly when it comes on a night when Willie's reaction to a Met actually calling out a teammate for a poor effort was disappointment about it not being handled in-house. Fine in theory, but in-house ain't worked for 11 months, Skip. Better by far to tell Billy Wagner that having aired out Oliver Perez publicly, he's got about 20 more players left to discuss on his radio show.

That said, the Mets played the kind of game they're capable of playing, and it was fun to watch. There was Reyes running wild from the first pitch, playing good defense, paying attention and not getting himself killed at home plate after Sandy Alomar got a hair too excited. When the second triple came, I was downstairs comforting Joshua after a bad dream, and could hear this vague big commotion from the TV upstairs. Even before I did the lineup math I knew it was Reyes. Remember when you automatically knew vague big commotions from the TV upstairs meant Reyes?

And he wasn't alone. There was Wright turning in a key at-bat late, shoving the Mets into a more-comfortable lead at a point where too often his teammates have lapsed into sleepytime and awoken too late. There was Ryan Church, continuing to offer Omar some job security in trying times. (I still think exiling Milledge was very strange, but Church sure looks like the solid player we were told he was. And boy do I not miss Shawn Green chugging in to field yet another moderately struck pop-up on the first bounce.) There was the returned Moises Alou, which should be nice until sometime later this month, when he pulls/tears/strains something, is bitten by a shark, steps on a mine, or whatever will befall him. And there was John Maine struggling through another mildly confounding outing, but at least struggling through instead of letting the Diamondbacks into the bullpen after five.

And since Willie is in no realistic danger yet, whatever Tim Marchman and Brooklyn Met Fan and I and a bunch of Faith and Fear readers and half of MetsBlog's commentors think, kudos to Willie for sending Maine back out there for the sixth instead of robotically following the book, and for putting Luis Castillo where he could damage the offense as little as possible. Please, for the love of God, just leave Church in the 2 hole.

P.S. Just heard a radio spot for a John Feinstein book chronicling the 2007 season as lived by Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine. No offense to Mr. Feinstein, but as a Met fan I'm going to skip that one. I'm sure I'll be forced to read it several thousand times in Hell as part of the All-Glavine Library, probably while "The Most Deranged Victory Calls of John Sterling" blares on continuous loop from a radio hardwired into the outlet and missing its knobs.