Freaky

With the day starting out with the tease of all teases (or was it just more Mets miscommunication) where Reyes was in the lineup but then he wasn’t, it could have been a sign of things to come.  And it still might this weekend, with Carlos Beltran returning to action with a brace bigger than a rottweiler playing on a field that looked like Arthur Fonzarelli rode his motorcycle all over it … all while one step on a drain away from disaster.

But Tim Lincecum, a fresh Tim Lincecum who we were reminded repeatedly of how he’s never beaten the Mets (and that’s when you knew how this story would end), showed us all how an ace should be treated as he was allowed to go all the way in a 2-0 loss coming out of the break. 

“Yeah, welcome back Carlos, you’re facing Lincecum tonight.  Shouldn’t be that much of an adjustment from who you saw in St. Lucie, right?”

Hell, he did good to get a hit in his return (one of the few), and he even attempted a stolen base with his gigantic brace (hence nicknamed Brutus The Brace) and was able to pop up and trot away without a scratch.  When you think about it that way, this night could have been a whole lot worse.  Lincecum could have struck out 27 straight, Beltran’s knee could have exploded all over Kevin Burkhardt’s cha-cha bowl, and R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball could have been hit so hard that it would have punched a hole in somebody’s life raft and caused them to tragically drown.  None of which actually happened, thankfully.  The hope now is that Dickey’s knuckler has sufficiently messed with the Giants heads for the rest of the series, as per Snoop’s grand plan.

By the way, with Dickey’s turn in the rotation now day one, guess who gets to face the other team’s aces now the rest of the way … As Johan Santana says: “Better you than me, sucker.”