All Hail the New Lightning God Applesauce: And, I need a cigarette

Meet the Mets

Holy balls, you guys.

I mean, just holy freaking balls.

Balls. Balls. Balls.

I apologize ahead of time if Applesauce is just a stream of unintelligible gibberish, but I saw things last night. Things, you see. Crazy, crazy things. I think the kiddies refer to such things as 'cray cray.' What looked like it would be another dreary Roy Halladay complete game shutout at the Mets suddenly turned into a bonkers win for the Metropolitans. It had a little bit of everything. David Wright being clutch, Dicktorino being called out for dickishness, Tim Byrdak against something called Eric Krantz in a high leverage situation, and Buntz? You betcha. In the end it was the Bash Brothers, Mike Nickeas and Jordany Valdespin, crushing pitches from Jonathan Papelbon and sending the Lord of the Dance to pout in the dugout.

Nothing could possibly bring me down from the best Mets win of the year... wait, who's pitching today?

Oh screw it, not even THAT can bring me down.

For a guy with oft-reported maturity issues, Valdespin was nothing but gracious after the game, though I am sure somebody in the Philly dugout thought he was a little too enthusiastic as he circled the bases. Boo. Hoo. Also, I would buy somewhere between 15-20 t-shirts that had Valdespin surrounded by lightning bolts. I smell a T-Shirt Tuesday, make it happen Jay Horwitz. Also, how fun is this team to root for? Whatever I think of Terry's bunting and constant platoon advantage seeking, he has the clubhouse humming.

Now, it's not all good news. Josh Thole was knocked out of the game after taking a shoulder to the face from Ty Wigginton on a close play at the plate. Frankly, it was amazing he even held onto the ball, but it does look like he has a concussion and will be put on the new 7-day DL they instituted this year. Rob Johnson or Lucas May would be the likely call-up if they make a move for another catcher. Technically, Vinny Rottino could catch, but that seems... unlikely. Any catcher call-up would require a 40-man move. Josh Satin was 1-3 with a double and a walk yesterday, or as I call it, The Josh Satin. Just sayin'.

Let's pop down to Savannah to note that Jacob DeGrom made the start for the Sand Gnats last night. Who, you might ask? That's okay, I forgot about him too. The 2010 draftee out of Stetson University missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Toby Hyde has more on DeGrom over at Mets Minor League Blog.

Around the NL East As Cole Hamels Turns

Oh geez. I will try to make this quick.

Let's see, first Nats GM Mike Rizzo called Cole Hamels a whole bunch of bad names. Then Hamels got suspended for five games, mostly for opening his big mouth. Tim Hudson was asked aboout this for some reason and thinks Hamels was wrong. As usual, Tom Tango has the most reasoned viewpoint on all of this.

And that concludes your week in Cole Hamels. Oh yeah, Jayson Werth is mad at the Phillies, too. It'll be about three months before he can get around to shutting up their fans, though.

Okay, actual baseball things: Jeff Samardzija (still can't spell it right on the first pass) and his Zorro-esque facial hair quieted the Braves bats, and Carlos Zambrano continues to look like pre-crazy less crazy Carlos Zambrano.

NotGraphs compares Brian McCann to Arn Anderson. Look, Dayn Perry (if that is your real name), when you try to bring the pro wrestler/baseball player comparisons, you are coming right into my wheelhouse. McCann looks way more like Ole Anderson. Actually, he look exactly like ECW's fake Anderson brother (not that Ole and Arn were actually related, mind you) CW Anderson.

Around MLB

As much as we internet geeks complain about Jon Heyman being a mouthpiece for Scott Boras, look what happens when he actually tries to write something not fed to him by baseball's superagent. It's not pretty.

Rounding out our PED news, Guillermo Mota was caught a second time for using a banned substance. That'll cost him 100 games. Why couldn't he have gotten caught before the 2006 playoffs? Why why why?

Beyond the Box Score tries to retool batting average. The result is obviously better than batting average, but it looks to me like it is just halfway to wOBA anyway, so you might as well just use that.

Hey remember when the Orioles looked like world-beaters last weekend? Yeah, about that.

The closer carousel has moved on to LA, where Javy Guerra is out and Kenley Jansen is in.

Fangraphs takes a look at the ridiculous statistics that Mariano River has compiled.

Lance Lynn has matched Bob Tewksbury as the only Cardinals starters to start 6-0. Tewksbury, incidentally, has a very cheap baseball-reference sponsorship for a guy who won 100 major league games. Of course, I already made my sponsorship for the year.