The Sky Is, Um, Not Falling

So I had the dubious pleasure of catching a little WFAN (that's the Mets sports talk radio) while doing errands on Saturday afternoon, and there's really something marvelous about the transparency of the formula.

You see, on Friday night, the Mets lost with Johan Santana on the mound against Phillies farmhand J.A. Happ in a tight game... and in the overreaction world that is sports talk radio, it's not one of 162 games, or even a rivalry game in mid-season... it's a breathtaking opportunity lost, a rebirth of Phillies confidence, a clear indictment of the in-game skills of Jerry Manuel (who pulled Santana after a low pitch count for Duaner Sanchez, who lost it on a couple of two-out hits).

Now, was the decision to pull Santana, who hadn't given up an extra-base hit and was cruising for almost the entire game, correct? Pretty damned doubtful, but defensible if Santana had told him he was done, or if he's concerned about burning out his ace before the stretch drive, since he's somehow not getting just how unspeakably important last night's game was. That was the kind of win that could just cause a big streak...

Or, at least, might have, had the Mets not then turned around and won the last two games of the series (9-4 on Saturday, and 4-2 in 12 innings with a rain delay today).

So, what's more likely here... that the NL East is just a collection of 85 to 90 win caliber teams, and as long as the teams stay within hailing distance of each other (the Phils now lead the Marlins by 2.5, and the Mets by 3.5), you can more or less safely ignore most of what happens in this pennant race for the next month or two... and given that none of those teams really sets up to have a post-season rotation that can match up to what Chicago (or the presumably stumbling Diamondbacks) can throw out there, maybe not even then.

Meanwhile in the other end of MLB+, the Yankees scraped back to a split in their 4-game series with the Red Sox... while the Rays swept the Royals for their seventh straight win in a row, meaning that they've gained two games on both teams during the showdown. So the Rays now have a 5 and 9 game lead over Coke and Pepsi, and if they can put together a quick 2-gam series win (Kazmir vs. Pettite, Jackson vs. Ponson), maybe they can put the Yankees in a double-figure hole in the East. The Sawx get a surprisingly competent Twins team that's even played near .500 on the road, and when you've got a team that's counting on big hits from JD Drew, you've got a team that's capable of blowing a series at home... especially when you weren't able to put the stake in the heart of your rival after taking the first two games in a four game set.

What you can, of course, rely on is that... no matter what the teams do on the field, any movement in the A-Rod Divorce will overwhelm anything else you hear about this, at least until Hank Steinbrenner bursts a blood vessel. Which is, well, increasingly more likely as the Rays just continue to put distance between them and the rest of the division...