Manipulating Statistics

Jeremy Hefner is 0-1 when the rain delay comes before the fifth inning. And he’s now 1-0 when the rain delay comes after the fifth inning.

He’s also 1-0 when he helps his own cause with a home run. I was asked today if Hefner hitting a home run means that the whole Donne Wall/Jason Jennings fiasco has finally come full circle. I’m not sure about that. Full circle would have meant that it was Hefner’s first game like Jennings and not his third. Also that I would have actually attended the game and yelled at Shane Victorino for being like Michael Jackson and wearing a glove for no apparent reason, as I did to Lenny Harris.

But it was nice to see it unfold on television … you know, Victorino looking like a fool. That’s always nice. And maybe he has a reason for wearing a glove. We just haven’t figured out what it is yet. In any event, keep stumbling, Shane. I’ll go watch the episode of Hawaii-Five-O where you die at the end. (That’s the directors cut.)

Also, Omar Quintanilla? Three hits? Maybe the Mets are due some good karma after three years of complete misery, agony, and Jeff Francoeur at-bats with the bases loaded. They certainly have enough good karma stored away to bring up a guy out of Buffalo and have him get three hits right off the bat. Quintanilla sounds a lot like the spanish word for butter, which is mantequilla. This obviously distracted Joe Blanton enough to think about scrumptious dinners cooked in butter, at which point the Mets laced him for nine hits and six runs in five innings. Yum.

The Mets have a chance to win the series from the Phillies on Wednesday, and if they do they will have won seven of nine from team sanctimony this season. And if that isn’t enough proof that they’re in trouble, they’re not going to have Doc Halladay for 6-8 weeks. That they’re over .500 without Ryan Howard and Chase Utley was amazing enough, but with that rotation it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Now they’re not going to have Doc until mid-July at best? My sources confirm to me that the Phillies are in a pile of feces.

And worst of all for them is that they missed out on studs like Roy Oswalt, who signed with the Rangers, or John Maine and Ryota Igarashi, who have both signed with the Yankees. This is proof that either Brian Cashman doesn’t watch a lot of baseball, or that he’s paying his scouts to have hooker parties with the secret service … because they’re obviously not watching a lot of baseball either.

Also, to reiterate: Nice catch, Shane.