Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Mets One Step Closer To NL East Crown

The Florida Dolphins made a good show of it tonight, with a 4-0 lead headed into the ninth, but Carlos Delgado's homer spoiled the show as the Marlins bullpen just fell apart. The Mets won, 6-4 on the bats of Floyd, Wright, LoDuca and Delgado, and the pitching perfromance of Bradford, Mota, Heilman and Wagner. Oliver Perez showed flashes of dominance too, striking out 11, though he left the game down 4-0.

Anyway, the Mets Magic Number is down to three, so if the Mets can beat the Dolphins tomorrow, and Atlanta can take care of the now second-place Phillies, the Mets can drink some bubbly. Let's all just hope that the clinching doesn't happen on the Thursday off-day, otherwise SNY won't be able to expand their oh-so-extensive roster of Mets Classics.

Here's the weird thing for the mathematicians to figure out: The Phillies are in second, with one fewer loss than the Marlins. So it's Phillies losses that we need to track when counting down the Magic number. But if Atlanta wins the first game of the doubleheader tomorrow, the Marlins would become the second place team, with one more win than Philly. So wouldn't the Mets control their own clinching destiny tomorrow night by facing the Marlins? Or, would we still need to track game two of the doubleheader in Atlanta, since the Marlins and Phillies would still be tied in the all-important loss column? Ponderous.

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