Game 117: Mets 10 Pirates 7

You know, before I could even turn this one on my computer, we were losing 5-0. Matt Morris had again started earning his money and put us in a Van Benschoten depth hole. So I didn't turn the game on right away. Sure, I'm living in a town where I don't really know anyone and I don't have cable, but I still couldn't bear to watch the Pirates. I kept an eye on the gamecast though, and I saw we started to creep back. With nothing better to do, and against my better judgment, I clicked the game on and started watching. Grabow kept us close for two innings and I thought to myself that it was kind of nice to see the pen keep us in a close game for once.

And as soon as I thought that, Shawn Chacon trotted into the game. Pretty quickly, Lastings Milledge ended up on third base with only one out. Luis Castillo hit a grounder back up the middle that Chacon made a great play on. He looked Milledge back to third. Then disaster struck. Instead of throwing the ball to first, he faked it over. It was a good fake and Milledge bit. So did Jose Castillo, who missed the bad but not awful throw from Chacon, allowing the sixth run to score. You can say what you want about the play, but there were an number of ways of recording that out without letting the run score and we accomplished none of them and before we could right ourselves, it was 10-4, more than enough runs to render the Pirates' three run rally in the ninth irrelevant. Just plain inspiring baseball.