It Takes a Bullpen of Millions to Hold Braves Back

It's fairly standard procedure for Jerry Manuel to go through as many as a half-dozen pitchers to cover one regulation game. It's a union rule, I think. Thus, I suppose it doesn't necessarily matter if he wants to spread members of his eight-man bullpen out per usual, like with a starter pushing himself overboard by the fifth, à la Big Goofy Pelf Friday night, or have them pop out of the Volkswagen Beetle Bozo-style one after another as he did in the eighth Saturday. Actually, it works better when the starter provides seven innings of stellar work in the fashion of a Johan Santana. It likely means things are looking good for the Mets or, considering it's the Mets we're talking about, not so bad. It was indeed not so bad going to the eighth after Johan continued his Santanalicious pitching of recent outings. The Braves didn't appear any stronger offensively than we did the night before (when we were yet again two-hit, though for what it was worth, we could ...