The Mets’ bullpen blew another one this afternoon, this time against the Braves in Atlanta. Leading 4-2 going into the bottom of the seventh, the bullpen gave up one run in that frame, and four more in the next. Carlos Delgado hit a two-run homer in the top of the ninth to make the final score look a little better. Scott Schoenweis took the loss. Here’s what espn.com had to say:
Down 4-3, Atlanta struck in the eighth against Scott Schoeneweis (2-5) and three Mets relievers. It was the latest collapse for a beleaguered bullpen missing injured closer Billy Wagner.
The relievers have a league-high 16 blown saves since the All-Star
break, the worst in the NL. Schoeneweis has lost three games since Aug.
26 and the relievers have a woeful 2-8 record since Aug. 11.
The Mets lost ground to both the Phillies, who now lead the division by a game-and-a-half, and the Brewers, who now trail the Mets for the wild card by only a game-and-a-half.
I suppose, though the Yankees would trade places with the Mets, at this moment. They won the final game at Yankee Stadium tonight over the Orioles, 7-3, but they’re about to be eliminated from the playoffs by the Red Sox, whose magic number is just 1. I’m sure that at the start of season the Yankees expected the final game at the Stadium to be played in October and to end with another World Series win.
It could still happen at Shea. Or next Sunday could be the last game. We’ll see.
On a more hopeful note: msnbc.com is reporting tonight that, with five days before the first presidential debate, Obama is widening his lead in the national polls as a result of McCain’s less-than-convincing response so far to the economic crisis:
McCain faces the daunting task of trying
to square his long history of advocating corporate and financial
deregulation — the sort of loose controls many blame for the turmoil on
Wall Street.Obama seized on that during a campaign appearance at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida.
“There’s
only one candidate who’s called himself ‘fundamentally a deregulator’
when deregulation is part of the problem,” Obama said.McCain
now says more controls are needed to prevent a repeat of the turmoil
that sent the stock market plunging, as he tries to recover from a
series of gaffes this week, starting with his Monday assessment that
U.S. economic fundamentals were strong.National
polls indicate that McCain’s edge in the U.S. presidential race has
slipped since the market upheaval. The latest Gallup Poll daily
tracking survey also showed Obama ahead, with 50 percent to McCain’s 44
percent. Last Sunday, a day before stocks took a dive on Wall Street,
McCain and Obama were in a statistical dead heat with McCain’s 47
percent against Obama’s 45 percent.
Appropriately enough, I’ve been thinking about the making and breaking of covenants this evening, as I prepare to lecture tomorrow on the Old Testament. I’m always struck, when re-reading Genesis and Exodus, by how much of the books are about property: wives, servants, cattle, sheep, and land. And all that attention to detail! God sure knew what he wanted in an ark, both the big kind (Genesis) and the little kind (Exodus)!
Tomorrow’s playlist: Genesis, “Follow You, Follow Me”; Peter Gabriel, “Here Comes the Flood”; and Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band, “Jacob’s Ladder.”
