Fitting Endings

It was fitting, I thought, that the Olympics should end with 400 Chinese shakin' their butts in the air. That's just the way I was feeling about the Olympics as they finally wound down, except my pants would have been at half-mast. While the beginning of these Olympic Games were practically earth-shaking, and the middle was excellent, by the end, I was ready for baseball again, oh, and football too. It was the two concurrent fantasy football drafts though that really did me in.

As I had feared for some time now, the Mets were not able to put away a team with good pitching. Although they hung around for ten innings, it was the middling Astros who took the third game of the series yesterday. And, as expected, the starting pitching was pretty good. That the relief pitching was less good, if not downright awful, had to be expected too, I guess. It had to catch up with my Metsies sometime.

The Giants-Jets game was a real yawner too, I thought, though we did see some pretty good defense, I suppose. That Osi Umenyiora was lost for the season is a real heart-breaker though. We can only hope it's not a forbidding omen, and that albatross I thought I saw flying over the stadium was just a gigantic pigeon, gone crazy from too many hot dogs and beer. Oh well, at least I won't have to spell his name again this season.

The most startling football news though, for fans not interested only in the local teams, was that Kurt Warner may have kept his starting job in Arizona over the bonus-baby heart throb from USC, one Matt Leinart. Kurt has been pretty darned good this exhibition season, but the word was that Leinart would surely be the starter. I'm sure salary negotiations may have played a part, too, in Warner's sudden ascension. When handing out millions to anyone, it's kinda nice to see them on the field, especially in Arizona, a place that has never happily given away anything, just ask Anquan Boldin.

In fact, if salary negotiations thrill you, this is your season. (Turn, turn, turn). Plaxico Burress may get some kind of extension and Antonio Pierce has had his hands out too, we are led to believe. At least the Jets seem a lot more settled right now, having already doled out multi-million dollar contracts to quite a few newcomers, such as Faneca and Pace. They may even be able to protect what's-his-name althoughthat wasn;t much in evidence on Friday night.

That the football season starts on a Thursday night thrills me not. What a stupid way to start a season. I know. I have to learn to adapt to change, Olympics in China, Jamaicans winning all the sprints, and making a big deal about the Redeem-Team beating friggin' Spain in basketball. Ho-friggin-hum. Kobe-Kobe-Kobe, WOOHOO.

But this piece is supposed to be about fitting endings, right? Well, based on this beginning, I'd have to say it would be entirely fitting if the Jets made the playoffs, what with about five rather extreme additions to both offense and defense. But for the Giants, alas, it doesn't look good. To lose Osi after losing Strahan is taking two big hits right off the bat. The rest of the league wasn't standing still, you know. I expect both the Eagles and the Skins to be more formidable this year. You can be sure Donovan McNabb will be singing no sad songs for the G-Men.

But now I must turn to the most fitting ending of all, the end of yesterday’s Mets game. I guess Mr. Manuel can’t spin a miracle every time out after all. Finding the right combination of mediocre relief had been a Manuel specialty as of late, but yesterday wasn’t one of those days. Well, actually, it did look as if he’d pull it off one more time, but he ran out of options at the end.

Pedro Feliciano gave up two, two, two big home runs in the top of the tenth to pretty much seal the Mets fate Sunday afternoon. And I say it was fitting only because the Mets have not been able to secure a top reliever after losing Billy Wagner. They did secure a pretty fair holder, if you will, but he had been used up in the ninth.

I suppose the real story of the game was that Oliver Perez could only put in 6 1/3 yesterday. Heilman relieved Perez in he seventh but couldn’t hold the lead for the southpaw starter, giving up two hits while retiring only one batter. Schoeneweis and Smith finished out the seventh and eighth very nicely too

Luis Ayala, the reliever they did acquire, has been very good, and he continued to be, pitching the ninth inning to a very good effect. But in the 10^th, Manuel was running out of options; there were only two relievers left.

Manuel opted for the lefty Feliciano. It was not his day. And it was very quickly not his day; no infuriating walks or seeing-eye base hits yesterday that in the past had brought Jerry out to the mound for a magic pitching change. No, yesterday, it was all over very quickly. Boom. Boom. Down two.

Duaner Sanchez, the last reliever, did finish out the tenth with no further damage but the Mets didn’t show much in their half of that 10^th inning and it was all over. The Astros closer, Jose Valverde, handled the top of the Mets lineup pretty handily yesterday.

But all is not lost. The Mets still retain their first place position in the NL East. They can tie the Astros series 2-2 with a win tomorrow and, as Mike Pelfrey takes the mound, things look pretty good, especially if he can give them seven or eight good innings. Then it’s the Phillies for two and Florida for three.

I sure hope the starters can keep on keeping on. Otherwise, there may be more fitting endings to come.