Mets beat Phillies for their 4th straight

Having found the Mets' season more than a little frustrating to this point, I enjoyed seeing our best hitters tee off on poor old Jamie Moyer. It did get a little close at the end there after the Jayson Werth (I learned via Twitter that the chant I couldn't quite identify on TV but saw was making Reyes laugh was "Jay-son Worth-less") two-run home run, but Frankie shut the door like he's supposed to.

As nice as it is to be back above .500, the state of the rotation is still such that I'm actually looking forward to the return of Tim Redding. That's something I never wanted to write.

Phillies win the World Series

That was a good Phillies team. I thought it was pretty obvious before the season started, which helped in the end because it made the Mets post-ASB division lead seem like a flukish occurence rather than reversion to the mean.

I'm not at all happy about it, but Chase Utley is a freakishly valuable player. Ryan Howard didn't even have as good a year as he easily could have, despite all the RBIs. The pitching staff wasn't exactly deep, even after the acquisition of Blanton, but Hamels and Myers had great seasons, and Lidge was wild but still pretty dominant all year.

I think the Mets could pass them this offseason but they can't do something stupid like spending the whole wad on an Elite Closer with a Nickname. Forget that. If you're going to dig deep for a pitcher it should be Sabathia. I don't even want Sheets or Burnett for injury reasons, with the latter being on parole for his 2008 but the former still always hurt.

Whatever big name(s) get acquired, I hope Minaya takes care to avoid a repeat of some of this season's uglier scenarios like starting Damion Easley at first or bringing Scott Schoeneweis into a regular season game.

Shane Victorino

As role players go, that guy is pretty damn good.

I don't much care who goes to the World Series from the junior circuit. I was thinking that Manny vs. the Red Sox would be entertaining, but now it's not at all clear that the Sox will hold up their end of the bargain.

Breaking - Matt Stairs, professional hitter. 7-5 Phillies

Brett Favre's plane just landed in Green Bay!

ESPN just broke into the baseball game to announce that Brett Favre has landed in Green Bay. He's on the ground. There was no fiery, newsworthy crash. Also, earlier on Baseball Tonight the ticker on the bottom of the screen had three categories: AL, NL, and FAVRE.

Let's hope the STL bullpen can keep the Phillies one run down. It would be nice not to have the Mets fall three back if Jason Isringhausen and co can avoid it, which they might.

Oliver Perez is capable of very dominant outings

Sure, he's capable of imploding at a moment's notice, but Oliver Perez also puts up ridiculous lines like this:

	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	Season ERA
O. Perez	7.2	6	1	1	1	12	1	4.15

I didn't see it but my guess is he struck out Ryan Howard more than once. That he didn't get a Win tells you all you need to know about that stat. But you know that team wins count, too, and this one put the Mets alone in the lead at 55-47. Not too shabby.

Phillies acquire Joe Blanton

Last season's collapse must have really taken its toll on my psyche. Gary Cohen just reported on the SNY broadcast that the Phillies acquired Joe Blanton, and instead of thinking "Oh, you mean soft-tossing rotation filler Joe Blanton?" my first thought was "Oh noes! He's much better than Adam Eaton!"

Talk about being scared of your shadow.

R.J. Swindle needs to recognize

The Phillies just brought a lefthander named R.J. Swindle (no apparent relation to McCain campaign flack Orson Swindle) to mop up the disaster that Adam Eaton left, and Gary says he's known for an eephus pitch.

Sure enough, he does, but David Wright was not baffled. He didn't even look slightly confused. He just looked like one of the world's best hitters watching a baseball approach him really, really slowly and hitting it out of the park.

Score one for the scouts.