The Maestro

With one swing of the bat, D. Wright erased 22+ innings of complete and utter weekend frustration at Shea. Frustration of fumbling a game away on Friday night with atrocious defense and sorry relief pitching. Frustration of getting taken to the woodshed by Mr. Anna Benson on Saturday night. Frustration of getting beat up by guys named Fahey, Markekis, Bedard, and Loewen. And, most importantly, the frustration of not being able to come up with any kind of big blast to put an undeniably medicore Orioles team in its place once and for all. This, my friends, is why they (ok, we) call him "Sugar Pants." But yesterday's 5th-inning grand salami was so good, so clutch, so important, that he deserves a second nickname. With apologies to Bobb Cobb (and to Bookie D, who holds precedence over all things Seinfeld-related), ladies and gents of blogdom, meet David Wright: The Maestro.

A few points:

(1) On Friday's game: If Delgado fields Roberts' bouncer in the 7th inning cleanly, that's probably a win. Que lastima. Soler was excellent, again. I guess I was ok with Willie lifting him after 101 pitches in the 7th - though I'm tempted to second-guess after Heilman's garbage performance again. But that would be a hindsight move. I thought Aaron had turned a corner in Philly with that great inning. I guess not. This was a winnable game, and certainly would've made Saturday's loss much more palatable.

(2) On Saturday's game: P.U.! What a dud this one was. Pedro was not sharp (although his line doesn't look that bad), and Benson was freaking dominant. What the hell - he's not that good. Trust me, I know this. 'Stings had 3 hits, but other than that, this was a snooze-fest. Mets never even made a peep.

(3) I seriously cannot even remember the last time the Braves won a game. They're hosting the tough Blue Jays for 3 starting tomorrow, a Jays' team that's undoubtedly pissed about how they got smacked around by the Fish this weekend. I may officially be calling the Braves D-U-N, DONE by Friday morning. I was actually tempted to do it today. Stay tuned.

(4) The Phillies didn't pick up a single game despite the Mets dropping this series. And they were HOME against TAMPA BAY. This team's got serious issues. But ah, hell, I guess we have to all root for the Yankees against them this week. I freakin' hate that.

(5) Wright's blast may have accomplished something else besides just winning this game. He knocked a classic SUCK ME pitcher out of the ball game. Has the SUCK ME demon finally been slayed? After Burrell's 2 ding-dongs on Thursday, I'm treading lightly here. Let's see them do it one more time.

So now we get our first look at the Cincy Redlegs, a team that started red hot and has since turned icy cold. X-Man should be back in the lineup tonight. Let's massacre those commie rats.