Pirates 7, Mets 6

Being a Mets fan this year is complicated. With the team's future seemingly brighter than its present, do you root for the team to win as much as possible, get lucky and perhaps sneak into the Wild Card race in a weakened NL East? Or do you root for the team to collapse as quickly and dramatically as possible to get Art Howe out of town in time to prevent him from screwing up that promising future?

You can't tell from that final score, but this was quite the pitchers' duel for seven innings. Through seven, Tom Glavine had pitched an absolute gem, allowing just one walk and one hit, with some help from his newfound security blanket Mike Cameron, while striking out two. And he'd done it all with just 78 pitches. Kip Wells allowed a pair of runs in the second to wind up on the losing end after seven. But then in the seventh, the Mets made the mistake of getting a runner on base and Howe decided it was time for him to do some managing. Jason Phillips reached on an error to start the inning and then three pitches into the next at bat Howe brought in a pinch runner. After Ty Wigginton and Ricky Gutierrez predictably failed to get on base, and failed even to advance pinch runner Jeff Duncan, Howe pinch hit for Tom "78 pitches" Glavine with two outs and a runner on first. After all, the average guy in this bullpen is more or less as capable as Glavine, the team's nominal and now actual number one starter, of getting outs, right? Duncan did manage to steal second with a 2-2 count on pinch hitter Todd Zeile, but then Zeile swung and missed and the Mets moved ahead with their slim lead but without their ace starter and one of their best hitters.

As you might imagine, the bullpen failed to hold the lead. Three balls that apparently weren't hit all that hard turned into hits against Orber Moreno. Former Yankee Mike Stanton walked the first hitter he faced and allowed an infield single. David Weathers gave up two hits and hit a batter. By the time Weathers had managed to record all three of the inning's outs, the Pirates had scored seven runs.

Howe got a little bit lucky as the Mets strung together some hits and with two outs Mike Cameron doubled in Kazuo Matsui. Then Eric Valent hit his second home run of the season, a three-run blast that was also his second hit of the season, pinch hitting in the spot vacated by Phillips. But even Jose Mesa couldn't give this game to the Mets in the ninth and Tom Glavine, having lowered his ERA to 0.90, kept his record at 2-0.

I don't know if Howe dreams of someday managing an All Star Game, and thus likes to play out the fantasy on a daily basis by getting every member of his bench into the game, but unless Glavine suffered some injury in the top of the seventh that I don't know about, his managing of this game was simply ridiculous. The bullpen worked more than a full nine inning game over the course of the last two days, while Tom Glavine was absolutely cruising tonight, looking like the anti-Leiter as far as his pitch count was concerned. Oh, and he's hitting .286, too.

Tomorrow, Steve Trachsel (1-1, 9.00) tries to follow up a strong outing and get the Mets going back in the right direction. Hopefully if he's pitching well in the seventh, he'll have a no hitter going so Art Howe won't be tempted to take him out. Oliver Perez (1-0, 5.40) opposes him for the Pirates.  ¶ joe | 10:42 PM |