I was always Tom Seaver as a kid playing ball against the wall. Ninth inning, two outs, two strikes, bases loaded, Game 7 of the Series, Mets up by won….Tom always struck him out.

Anyway, I don’t think it’s not in the cards this year folks. I’ll still go, and cheer, but unless the Mets beat Philly in head-to-head matchups, I’ll be tough to catch up. We have 12 more games against Philly. We need to go 9-3 in those games. Yes, that is looking ahead, but the wild card is not coming from the East reducing the Mets chances. I look at it this way:

Arizona or LA will win the West. The wild card will NOT come from the West. LA is average, thus Arizona will most likely win with pitching. They are not a dominate team however.

The Central has two good teams – Cubs and Cards. They will feast – generally – on the rest of the Central. Can anyone say “unbalanced schedule”. 60 games for Cubs and Cards against average/below average teams. The Cubs and Cards will finish with nice high-win records.

The East – I expect the Marlins to fade slightly, but they’ll be a tough opponent, but I don’t expect them to overtake Philly which this is all about at this point.

Atlanta has pitching problems. Hampton, Smotz, Glavine are all on the DL. They aren’t making it, though again, they are team that plays smart baseball.

Forget about Washington. They are not there yet.

So, to make the playoffs, given what is expected to occur in the Central, only the East winner will make the playoffs. The Mets need to WIN THE EAST!

And while going .600 as an average, they need to go over .700 against Philly. Every game, but particluarly every Philly game is critical from here on out.

It is hard to have a well organized and unified army when your commanding officer doesn’t have a pulse, and your general keeps sending the lepers to your troop.

Seriously.. if this team was a real army, we’d surrender more than the dang French.