For the Mets, it's a zero-sum game

LOS ANGELES – How long the New York Mets have been here, as a ballclub less than the sum of its roster, less than the sum of its plans.

How often they chase their image of themselves, the big names in the big city, big contracts all around, and then flops just as big.

Not yet August, the Mets have gotten ahead of themselves just a little.

The National League East looks like too much for them. Ill-fitting parts turn two-game losing streaks into two weeks of trauma, and then into a monthlong rescue and recovery. The manager and general manager are being measured for unemployment for a second time in the same season. They fill a hole, find another, get Carlos Beltran(notes) back, have Jason Bay(notes) bat .169 for the month, welcome Angel Pagan(notes), and have Ike Davis(notes) lose his stroke.

It's what they do.

Pushed into a corner, Omar Minaya blesses Jerry Manuel, and Manuel raises his eyebrows and asks of reporters, "You got on me again? Well, that's when I run off 10 straight." And everybody chuckles straight through another loss.

"Welcome to New York, brother," Minaya calls, as though the problem was perception and not reality, as though accountability lives only in his town.

They've conducted themselves as though they've been a player away since Beltran infamously watched strike three, and remain two or three away, even when finally at full health.

As night fell Friday, flickering red and amber lights appeared on a ridgeline of the San Gabriel Mountains beyond Dodger Stadium's left-field fence. Helicopters scattered, hovered and alit. For a change, it wasn't the Mets who were ablaze.

Nearing the end of a road trip in which they'd lost seven of eight games, and beyond that, 15 days in which they'd lost 10 of 12 games and 5½ games to the Atlanta Braves, the Mets discovered their offensive side. Davis homered. Bay, six innings after dashing face-first into a bullpen gate, doubled home three runs.

They gained a game on the Braves for the first time in 12 days, and had a reason to feel good about themselves for the first time in five. They're 6½ games out with more than two months to play and know firsthand leads like that disappear in a couple weeks, as long as everyone cooperates.

Minaya on Friday night strolled through a winner's clubhouse, tapping fists, smiling broadly. They'd pitched. Or, Johan Santana(notes) had pitched. They'd hit and scored runs. Manuel had ranted and punched the air and lobbed spittle and gotten himself ejected, re-enforcing there's still plenty to play for, way beyond Manuel's job.

Always, it seems, the Mets are playing for more than just that night's game. They're living up to payroll, or the Yankees, or the new ballpark. They're living down last year, or the year before, one collapse or calamity after another.

The regular variables of a baseball season collide daily with a history of underachieving, so Minaya backs Manuel, leading to the snarky question, "Yeah, so, who's backing Minaya?"

It's frankly exhausting.

"Last year was the toughest," Minaya said, given the new ballpark and the fresh expectations and the 92 losses. "There's still, this year, remnants of that. But we feel when we're healthy we're as good as anybody in baseball. Now we're putting our team on the field. We're getting our team back in place."

That's part of the issue, of course. Until their 6-1 win Friday night, by putting all their players in the lineup they'd gone offensively comatose. Just so-so for three months, the Mets in July were last in the National League in runs and next-to-last in the way most teams score runs, by getting on base and/or hitting home runs. Along came the usual questions about the Mets, about whether or not their players are winners or ever could be winners, and then about the men who brought them in and manage them.

The strong belief around the team is that only a postseason berth saves Manuel, a good and respected man who hasn't yet satisfied the bottom line. Minaya is under contract for another 2½ years, an untidy fact that hasn't softened the criticism of his rosters.

"As far as fixing the drama," Minaya said, "that's part of it. The drama will always be there. You gotta be strong in mind, confident in what you believe in and stick with it. If you deviate from that, that's when you're in trouble. We have to find a way to get it done."

For one night, they found it. Unless it found them (the Dodgers aren't putting up much of a fight these days either). In reality, Manuel is still moving pieces around, regardless of the names and resumes. Angel Pagan batted third, and at one point was asked to sacrifice bunt. Bay batted seventh. Beltran is far from the player he was before knee surgery. Jeff Francoeur(notes) has played himself to the bench.

They have more moving parts than reliable parts. They have guys coming back from injury, coming back from a slump, coming back from whatever.

"We do," Manuel said. "You would hope that transition doesn't take as long. But that's part of it. You have to have confidence it will work. You gotta have faith and believe in it. Patience, this time of year you don't have much of it."

Patience? Here?

He laughed.

How often he has needed that.