The Mets never lost a game in 2006....

...they just ran out of time.

Their nine game stretch that was striking fear in the hearts of fans with Jose Lima, Jeremi Gonzalez, and Stave Trachsel starting five of the games and a rookie Alay Soler in another game has passed with the Mets taking five games. If I told you Met starters would only have two wins out of the last nine games, you probably would not have thought the Mets were successful during that stretch, but they were thanks to a team that just never quits. Four of the five wins were won by one run and two of the three losses were lost by one run with another loss being a two run differential. The overall run differential for the past nine games has the Mets up two, 43 runs to 41 runs.

Fans were treated with great ball games in the six game homestand and an average crowd of 46,849 showed up at Shea including four games over 50,000 with an astounding 51,365 showing up to weekday game with Jeremi Gonzalez starting. Out of the last six games the Mets played at home, they hit at leat two homeruns in every game with the exception of yesterday's game when only Jose Reyes hit a homerun. Thirteen balls were hit out or the park and 65% of their runs came on homeruns.The Mets are now tied for second in the National League in homeruns and tied for fourth out of the entire Major Leagues. The Mets have eleven more homeruns than the Yankees and twelve more homeruns than the Red Sox. When was the last time that happened?

Now that the rotation picture is a little less muddy with Lima Time! and Jeremi Gonzalez never to be seen again, the bullpen is stronger than ever, and possibly the most potent Met offense ever, this team is poised to do sometime special this year. Life is good in Met land.

* * *

This was truly bizarre. Frank Robinson had a Dick Vermeil moment.

"I've never had that happen before," Robinson said, choking up. "And I don't like someone to go through what he had to go through today. I feel for people who have to go through something like that. But I couldn't do anything about it. I feel for him, and I hope the fans understand."

LeCroy is a guy who should not be behind the plate. When people steal seven on your emergency catcher, it's not a sad moment, it just sucks.

In another shrewd low risk, high reward move, Omar picked up his second starter in as many days and traded Robert Manual for Dave Williams.

"If he gives us 10 wins and has a 4.00 E.R.A. as a fifth starter, I'll take it," General Manager Omar Minaya said. But for now, Williams will be pitching in the minors.

Why must the Mets continue this charade like Jeremi Gonzalez ever had a chance?

"I just think Soler pitched much better," GM Omar Minaya said. "There were more swings and misses with Soler than Gonzalez."

He has a 7.71 ERA and he is lucky to have that. A pitcher with his stuff usually relies on something other than his fastball, but he predominantly throws poorly placed fastballs that have little movement.

Tommy boy, I'm sorry I ever regretted buying a Glavine jersey.

"If they're telling me it gives them some flexibility to be able to go out and add some players at some point in time to make our team better, then heck, yeah, I'm all for it," Glavine said. "That's good for us, it's good for me, and the better chance we give ourselves of winning, that's a win-win for everybody.

"You can pretty much assume at the start of the season, if you're in contention, coming into the trading deadline, no matter how good you are, there's something you can add to get better."

Sugar Pants and Carlos Beltran had rough days at the plate.

"Just one of those days," Wright said. "It's going to happen, it's part of the game. As much as I'd like to go out there and get three hits and drive in a couple of runs every day, it's not going to happen."

Jay Greenberg is calling for Kaz's reign at second to be over. Predictably, after I wrote an article on Metsgeek.com praising the little guy about a month ago, he completely looks horrible since then. Now that Anderson Hernandez continues to dominate AAA, he is playing himself back into the picture. However, as bad as Kaz looks, he does not look overmatched. He has taken some bad swings and had a nice little hitting streak that he hit about .220 through since he was picking up one hit a game during the stretch, but he has not looked like he has not belonged. While Hernandez was struggling, he looked like a guy who simply did not belong and I would be hesitant to make any quick moves just yet.

This has been one of the nice surprises to have come out recently in the news.

I talked to someone with another team today who said he had heard that the Mets and Beato were getting closer to a deal. The expectation from other teams is that New York will sign him, especially considering that he's a first-round talent in a year in which it doesn't have a first-round pick. It's not like money is much of an object to the Mets, anyway.

We ranked Beato as the No. 13 prospect on our Top 200 and he'd likely go in the second half of the first round if he re-entered the draft. He had Tommy John surgery during his junior season at Brooklyn's Xavieran High, and the Mets took him in the 17th round last year as a draft-and-follow.

That proved to be an astute decision, as he has shown three plus pitches at times this spring. Beato has a hard sinker that sits around 90 mph and touches 96. He also has a sharp 84-85 mph slider and a promising changeup. He has a strong build at 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds, and his biggest need is to improve his mechanics and, by extension, his command. At age 19, he has plenty of time to figure that out.

All this positive talk about Beato, who is regarded as the thirteenth best talent available for this year's draft, has been great.

As hard as it is to admit it, I actually enjoyed the commentary from Mike and The Mad Dog yesterday. Well, not so much Mike, but the Mad Dog was fun to listen too. He almost had a heart attack when he called the Reyes three run homer and I have never heard such an excited call for the first out in a ball game in my entire life. Listening to them completely butcher names for the entire game also had it merits too and you have to say it was success. Money was raised, people were entertained, and they were good soldiers. They sounded like they prepared for the game and kept all of the topics on the Mets. I actually dislike them a little less today.