It's that time of year when baseball moves to the head of the line, shoving aside personal commitments and anything job-related that isn't truly extraordinary. (I've got one of those next week, which is hard to do when you don't actually have a job.) Eight games to go, every one of them freighted with potentially enormous significance. Are we in first place? Second? Is the margin small enough that the one could become the other again tonight? Did Coolstandings just add or subtract 30-odd percent to or from our postseason chances? What did the Brewers do? Are the Marlins close enough to worry about yet? What's our magic number, anyway? What's our other magic number? OK, what's their magic number?

Last night was the final regular-season Saturday-night game to come at the same time as our regular Saturday-night babysitter, so Emily and I didn't even discuss what the plan was -- we didn't need to. We decided to walk over the bridge and go to Mark Joseph Steakhouse, where back in July we'd found good eats, bar seats right by the TV and a companionable bartender whose public loyalties were whatever his customers espoused (only sensible) but whose semi-private loyalties were orange and blue. Second verse, same as the first -- we even got our same seats, and Jared remembered us and tended to our food-and-drink needs and our worries over Pedro, the bullpen and the lineup with equal aplomb.

The only problem? Well, as with last time, it was that pesky score. 3-0 when we arrived a bit late, prompting a round of Pedro-related angst. Greg's covered the gist of that, and at Mark Joseph we traced much the same trajectory, from melancholy declarations that it's Jon Niese's turn (and discussions of whether Brandon Knight would be a better choice) to stubborn urging to slow hope to jubilation over Pedro's Mister Koo-like double to grumbling over the blown call at second. The saving grace was that it was largely a private war -- a White Sox fan would stop by for updates on his own postseason quest, but other than that the bar was Mets country. The ultimate proof of that? In the middle innings the inevitable Yankee fan made an unasked-for appearance, woofing his support for the Braves. That ruffled not a feather on any of the rest of us -- if anything, it brought mild, amused disbelief. You're a Yankee fan rooting against the Mets in enemy-of-my-enemy fashion? Has your season really dwindled to notions of such little consequence? Oh, that's right -- it has. The unwelcome noise went quiet and then went away entirely, as the Yankees themselves soon will.

The Mets are trying to avoid the same fate, and so what they did against the Braves mattered quite a bit, and ended poorly, with Nick Evans striking out as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Before that, seeing our bartender friend and the dour score, Emily joked that we'd been a bit worried about coming, given what happened last time. Which prompted Jared to smile but also to raise an eyebrow -- perhaps thinking that his record is pretty damn good, except when these two idiots from Brooklyn plop down at his bar.

"You should come when Santana's pitching," he said.

Addendum: A friend of Faith and Fear is looking to sell tickets for Tuesday's and Thursday's games. Two for each game, field boxes (117F), $59 each. Can be fetched in Brooklyn or Times Square. If you're interested, drop us a line and we'll broker a meeting. First come first served and all that.

The occasional Quadruple-A desperation callup notwithstanding, no Met starter is more difficult to watch than Pedro Martinez. That's less a reflection of his mediocre output in 2008 than it is how much emotion he elicits from me every time I see him.

His first innings have been killers. If Pelfrey or Ollie were having them, you'd figure it was just one of those nights and the guy would have to work out of it. If it were Johan, you'd adjust your set because not since the weirdo Seattle game with the Felix Hernandez grand slam has he had any significant early problems of which to speak. If it were Maine, you'd be thrilled he was back. But it's been Pedro stepping on the mound and stepping into trouble as almost a matter of course this season. And it breaks my heart every time out.

It breaks my heart because it no longer surprises me that Pedro's in deep almost immediately, if not sooner. Saturday night's three-run first in Atlanta was numbingly normal for he who was an ace among aces for most of his career, some of it here. Other pitchers have bad first innings and I worry about the game. Pedro has a bad first inning and I worry about the game, the rotation, the season, his career and the common mortality we are all leasing on this planet.

What makes his lousy first innings (21 runs in 19 starts with a .361 batting average against) and his generally dissatisfactory outings particularly painful is that I can see him knowing what's not working. He's too smart for his own good. All pitchers, I suppose, are more clued in than we would guess. They all have an idea of what they want to do but they just can't do it sometimes. Pedro can outthink any batter. He just can't outpitch that many anymore. It's tough to absorb. It doesn't necessarily all go to hell on him at once either. He struggles and he struggles and there's always one too many batters in an inning. By the time he solves in practice what he's figured out in theory, it's 3-0 in the first.

Then, sometimes, somehow he turns it on. Not vintage Pedro, but close enough for 2008. Pedro can keep you in the game. Not as a rule, but he did Saturday. When Jerry sent him up to bat for himself in the fifth, I was a little surprised and moderately annoyed. First and second, two out, no offensive prospects otherwise, and we're not taking our best shot? Then again, one more inning of a settled-in Pedro versus the mysteries of the Met bullpen after a roll of the dice on Marlon Anderson? Either way, I wasn't thrilled. Then Pedro swings and belts a double that scores two runs — even Schneider from first.

Pedro's two-bagger was one of those moments, albeit writ small, along the lines of the Endy catch when you can't believe the Mets won't somehow grab the unlikely momentum onto which they've latched and turn it into something great. Pedro goes out and fuels your hope even more by snagging an Omar Infante liner and turning it into a DP. Damn the Mets for continuing to not touch Campillo. Damn Bill Hohn for a horrible, lazy, out-of-position blown call on what should have been a caught stealing on Brandon Jones in the bottom of the sixth, thereby setting up a Brave insurance run. (Granted, Gary Darling helped the Mets earlier with an out at first they didn't quite deserve, but C.B. Bucknor called out a clearly safe Jorge Cantu in Miami at home; when did Major League umpires turn into the kind of useless bystanders who populate the Shea Stadium Ushers Union?)

There were collateral benefits to Pedro's losing start. By going six after that typically dismal first, he didn't tax the bullpen, admirably effective in its two innings of fort-holding. By throwing 116 pitches, he reminds you that he is, unlike too many on this club, healthy. By not crumbling after Josh Anderson's RBI single made it 4-2 and retiring the dangerous Martin Prado, he left on a modest high note. And by answering everybody thoughtfully and honestly afterwards, he was a professional. Use me any way you want, he said: I'll pitch middle relief, I just want to help this team win. Pedro clearly wasn't kidding himself, so he didn't try to kid anybody else that everything's fine.

It's not. But it's not all for naught, I don't think. Watching the first, on the heels of his last start in Washington and the one before that against Philly, I was bouncing him from Thursday's turn. It's not my decision to make, but now I'd put him out there again. The entire season could be on the line. Unless you've got the Pedro Martinez of nine or six or three years ago warming up under the stands, I don't see any better options.