What Happens in Frisco Stays in Frisco

Editors Note: Mets Fan in Texas is now Mets Fan in Las Vegas.  At least this week, while he attends the big National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention.  This will be brief, as he is very tired and sore from standing all day for 3 days, and has had little time to scrutinize basball games and make silly comments about them.  He has seen the scores in every sports book in town, and - in a slightly unrelated note - dropped 10 bucks on the Carolina Hurricanes to win the Stanley Cup at 14 to 1. 

Well, the Mets went 4-3 on their first west coast swing.  They won ugly against San Francisco tonight after Barry Bonds hit a 97 MPH Billy Wagner fastball over the center field wall to tie the game in the ninth. 

David Wright continues to throw like a shotgun when the pressure is on (maybe Carlos Delgado ought to bring a fishing net out to first base with him), and Carlos Beltran and Brian Bannister are out with hamstring injuries.  Beltran may return this weekend, but if he does, will it be at 100 percent?  Probably not.  But the lineup is clearly stronger with him in the middle.

Willie Randolph said Bannister "doesn't look good,"  which means it will probably be up to John Maine, Jeremi Gonzales, or Jose "I can dance better than I can pitch these days" Lima to fill the 5th spot in the rotation indefinitely.  Aaron Heilman will most likely stay in the pen, especially with the improved, but still unproven, Jorge Julio not quite ready for the setup role.

Now it's on to Hades - I mean Turner Field - to face the Braves. Victor Zambrano has been properly shifted out of the series so that he can possibly win a 10-9 game against Washington next week, and Julio Franco is boring everyone with stories of how he played against the Braves when they were still in Boston.