When the New York Mets' Matt Lawton smacked a two run double to give his team a 9-7 victory over the Florida Marlins on Saturday night, he did more than just win the game. The victory brought the Mets up to one game under five hundred for the first time since April 12, when the squad's record stood at 4-5. While approaching .500 may not seem like a remarkable feat to most teams, it is a sign of how far the Mets have truly come. It appeared that their season was over 21 games ago, as the team was 14 games under .500. Then, almost as suddenly as their fall from World Series runners-ups in 2000 to a squad which was battling the lowly Montreal Expos for last place, the Mets started winning. While they are still clearly a long shot to make the playoffs, the Mets now find themselves seven games behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL East with 19 games to play, which is a much great improvement from only a few weeks earlier.
Although Lawton's hit on Saturday night it became clear that the Mets' luck was changing for the better, signs that the team's fortunes were beginning to shift were obvious last Monday. In a game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Todd Zeile who is not known for his foot speed, raced from second to home and scored the game winning run. He began running from second when reliever Jose Santiago missed a routine throwback by Phillies' catcher Todd Pratt and scored when Phillies' shortstop Jimmy Rollins threw the ball past the third baseman.
In a year highlighted by Barry Bonds' run at the 70 home run plateau and the Arizona Diamondbacks dynamic pitching duo of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, the emergence of the St. Louis Cardinals' young ace Matt Morris has gone almost completely unnoticed. On Sunday afternoon against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the young righty looked to become the second 20-game winner in the Major Leagues. Morris (19-7, 3.73 ERA) is in the midst of a seven game winning streak and it appears that he is finally living up to the potential he displayed as a rookie in 1997 when he went 12-9 with a 3.17 ERA. Since his debut, Morris has battled injuries and missed parts of the 1998 season before sitting out 1999, following surgery. He returned to the Cardinals last year but only now is returning to his old form.
As the season winds down, it appears that Rickey Henderson's lengthy career may be coming to an end as well. The question remains whether or not Henderson has enough time to reach the two milestones he is still pursuing - 3,000 hits and Ty Cobb's all-time run record of 2246. Going into spring training, it looked like Henderson might be out of luck, as no one was willing to pick up the self-absorbed outfielder. However, towards the end of March, the San Diego Padres made the decision to sign him to a one year contract. And despite his meager .220 batting average, Rickey still has managed to help his team with a .369 OBP. He needs 15 more hits to join the 3,000 club and only ten more runs to surpass Cobb, so its now or never time for Rickey.
Just as the Boston Red Sox have ostensibly been eliminated from the American League playoff hunt, the National League's lovable losers - the Chicago Cubs - are beginning to show signs of crumbling as well. The Cubs lost their fourth straight game on Saturday but did not remained 5 and 1/2 games behind the Houston Astros, who lost to Milwaukee. While the Cubbies stand only one game behind the Giants in the wild card, the situation has become so dire in Chicago that manager Don Baylor called a team meeting prior to Saturday's loss to encourage his team to focus. Judging by the outcome of the game following the meeting, Baylor was not overly effective.
@s:Cubs showing signs of weakness
