Benjamin Grimm

Pelfrey 4.5 Smith 1

I think I need to go back to Hawaii. The Mets were winning and winning when I was there, and the losing has returned since I have. If everyone wants to chip in for airfare for a family of four to go to Hawaii, I'll set up a PayPal account.

Beltran, Wright, and Alou all had very good Septembers last year. So, actually, did Delgado. (He hit .321 and slugged .526.) It was mostly pitching that killed them. (And Reyes.)

NOT

Mike Schmidt was right; the Phillies are a better team than the Mets. They rise to the occasion, the Mets shrink from it. Our best hope (and a reasonable one) is to have the Brewers suck more than the Mets do over the next week and a half. And then, the next step is to have the Mets wake up once the playoffs start. That seems to be more of a pipe dream, but you never know. (What is a "pipe dream" anyway? Does it have something to do with drugs? Or do people actually dream about pipes?)

metirish wrote: Was Grim planing the 69's with those old ladies? Well, no, but now I'm thinking that maybe things would have turned out better yesterday if I had. Oh well.

Pssst! Caps lock!

Willie Harris is a genuine pain in the ass.

Braves have come back to tie it at 3. Astros still trail the Marlins 5-0. Cubs and Brewers just underway.

8-5 will only be good enough if the Phillies go 7-5. And I think they'll do better than that. (Of course, if the Brewers go 7-5 or worse, then we'll still be okay.) What the Mets really need is a 10-3. And that's a pretty tall order, but it's doable.

Yeah. I think we have to at least win all of the Pelfrey/Perez/Santana starts.

Maybe we should all do 69 stuff tonight.

I'm not at all superstitious, but even I sometimes find myself thinking that the Mets were doing better before I put my feet on the coffee table, or that they won't get this run home as long as the dog is whimpering at the door. I even think such thoughts when I'm watching a TiVoed game from the night before! Even if my coffee table had magic powers, it can't be powerful enough to alter the course of history and change the outcome of a game that's already been played!

Not that I'm aware of.

Have it laundered first.

I had two nice old ladies come to my door this afternoon to tell me that Satan is in control of the world.

Eddie Yost yesterday was a rare non-player to lead the UMDB in daily hits. (And he's currently enjoying a healthy lead in today's clicking as well.) I'm sure it has something to do with confused web surfers looking for information on fired Milwaukee manager Ned Yost.

Please note: Any lucky charms that we might have used LAST September were clearly defective and should not be utilized this time around.

Yankees tragic number for the Red Sox is 4 and for the Rays it's 5. Yankees have 70 losses, so the most they can win is 92 games. Red Sox have 89 wins; they need 4 to get to 93. Rays have 88 wins; they need 5 to get to 93.

Vote totals for the weekend's series against the Braves are understandably low. I can understand the waning enthusiasm for this stuff, but hopefully the Mets will revive over the next couple of weeks, and we'll also see a revival of Schaefer participation. Anyway, the three games vs. Atlanta will all close on Wednesday. Vote, if you're so inclined: Schaefer POTG 09/13/08 Game 1, Atlanta 3, Mets 2 Schaefer POTG 9/13/08, Game 2 - Mets 5, Braves 0 Schaefer POTG 09/14/08 Atlanta 7, Mets 4

Given what's been going on in the National League, this thread isn't as much fun as it had been. I fear that, shortly after the Yankees are eliminated, we'll be asking not for whom the fat lady sings...

Martinez 1 Rincon 0.5 Reyes 0.75

W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs 1D Change 7D Change Mets 83 66 .545 90.1 71.9 56.51660 16.83896 73.35555 -7.06575 -4.91233 Phillies 83 67 .528 89.7 72.3 43.26255 21.14525 64.40781 5.07811 29.74335 Brewers 83 67 .531 89.4 72.6 .44187 53.08477 53.52663 4.81292 -26.90453 Astros 80 69 .481 86.9 75.1 .00127 7.61744 7.61871 -3.09947 4.82995 Did yesterday's loss hurt? YES! Their overall playoff chances drop by another 7%; Wild Card goes up by 2 while the Division Championship drops by 9. Houston's loss only cost them 3 points, but they only had 10.7 at the start of yesterday's action. Mets NHOP is now at 52% (13 happy outcomes out of 25 games). That's not a good number, needless to say. (It applies to both the Phils and the Brewers.) The magic number over the Phillies and Brewers remains at 13. If they don't reduce it today, then tomorrow morning they'll no longer even have a magic number. The Mets magic number over the Astros is 11 and the NHOP for eliminating Houston's threat to the Mets, such as it is, is 42.3% (11 out of 26). Good stuff needs to start happening, and soon.

Yup. If the Astros can get effectively slapped aside, the Mets path to the postseason becomes a little less cluttered.

My hand is raised!