Anyone sitting in the stands at Shea Stadium last night had to be thisclose to finally reaching their breaking point. Not only were the Mets seemingly on their way to finding yet another creative way to lose, they were doing so in a cold, steady rain. This time around, the bullpen, impressively enough, needed just one pitch to blow Pedro Martinez’s lead — against the Cubs’ B-team no less.
But maybe it was appropriate, then, that it was the Mets’ own bit players that saved the day: Ramon Martinez and Robinson Cancel each delivered RBI singles in the eighth, the latter of which allowed Ryan Church to tie the score at six on a downright bananas slide into home. (If the Mets make the playoffs this year, that might just be the play where their luck started to change.) And then in the ninth, just two batters after Daniel Murphy failed on perhaps the worst bunt attempt in history, Carlos Beltrán finally came through with the big late-inning hit the Mets have been waiting for.
Going into the season’s final weekend, the Mets still trail the Phillies by a game, but just as important, they maintain a tie with the Brewers in the wild-card standings. Which makes last night’s win so huge: The last thing the Mets — who, we’ll remind you, led the division by three and a half games a mere two weeks ago — needed was to head into the last series on the outside looking in. But now, things are about to get fun. This is supposed to be fun, isn’t it?
