It’s a nice state of affairs when you can trust your team to take care of things when you’re gone…to do great work in your absence.  Its nice to know you left the house in good hands.

I treated myself to a lychee martini after work tonight, walked a few blocks over to see Dominic Chianese, otherwise known as Johnny Ola, or to you younger types, Uncle Junior from The Sopranos, sing at a place called The Cutting Room.  Dominic sang his heart out and by the time I got home, the Mets had taken the liberty of running up a 9-2 lead for me.  These guys routinely greet me with a big fat lead when I reach for the clicker and fire up channel 741 after a couple of beers.  I click the set on  knowing they've got my back.

When I arrive, it is the bottom of the 8^th and from what I can tell, El Duque was again, a monster.  He  let the first two hitters on and then proceeded to retire the next few thousand guys in a row after that.  The Mets in the meantime had run up a 9-2 lead and the current pitcher Ambiorix Burgos is making the Marlins look absolutely foolish.  Burgos is untouchable.  From my spot on the couch, he looked like a the High School kid throwing his hardest against a bunch of  12 year olds.  His fastball arrived about a minute and a half before any Marlin, (it doesn't matter which, take your choice) could twitch from his stance.  Burgos was throwing  96-100 mph gas and despite knowing the it was coming, the Marlins were just helpless to do anything about it.  The strong arms in orange and blue teamed up for a nasty 15 Ks tonight.

As a complete aside, how much of a class act is Valentin?  Showing graceful, brilliance with the glove at second base and swinging the bat like a young buck once again, the Mr. Borrero doppelganger suavely and quietly just continues to contribute.

I just saw the highlights from the game and I feel compelled to add one more thing.  Something I saw didn’t strike me as quite right.  Despite the fact that he's on my team, and I enjoyed being the one with the advantage, it doesn’t seem all that fair that they let El Duque pitch with a whiffle ball when the ball the Marlins had to use regulation grade equipment.  The curve was dancing through the air like a marionette in the hands of a master.  Like with Burgos, it was like watching a grownup pitch to a bunch of overmatched kids.  Where’s the sport in that?

Wright extended his hitting streak to 26 games, El Duque struck out 10, VBeltran went 4-6 and Castro launched a missile in the absence of Paul LoDuca.  They had a term for a game like this in the schoolyard in New City...Slaughter sides.