Jordan Zimmermann pitched into the sixth inning, the Nats rapped out nine hits, and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez got two badly needed RBIs for his first hit of the season as the Washington Nationals surged past the New York Mets, 6-2, on Friday. It now seems all but certain that the young, but steady, Zimmermann is a commanding influence in the Nats’ starting rotation — which has been outstanding in the 2011 campaign’s early going. Zimmermann added to his own growing resume with an unexpected, but badly needed, two run RBI single of his own in the second inning. The victory brought the Nationals to 3-4 in the young season, with the team adding to their own legendary mastery of the Mets. The Nats are now 6-3 in their last nine games against the Metropolitans.

Once again the bullpen was superb, providing the Nationals with 3.2 innings of one hit baseball, while striking out three and walking two. The only unsteady presence was Chad Gaudin, who is having problems mastering the strike zone. The key contributor in the pen once again was Tyler Clippard, who is emerging as one of baseball’s most effective relievers. Clippard came on in relief of Gaudin, with runners on second and third and one out — and retired the side. “In those situations, you have to set the tone and throw strikes. I was able to do that,” Clippard said. “The last few outings, I’m trying to build some confidence. We have been playing good ball. We tried to change the momentum today and get it on our side. I made some good pitches to where we were able to do that.”

Trouble For The Kings of Queens: You can see why Mets fans are worried. Friday’s win came at the expense of Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, one of the mainstays of the shaky Mets rotation. But Dickey has problems of his own, including a nagging nail problem that hampers his control. New manager Terry Collins lifted Dickey for this reason, despite the pitcher’s claim that he could go another inning. “I tried to hang in there as long as I could,” Dickey said. Other post-game comments centered on Carlos Beltran, who started in right field at Citi Field for the first time in his career. Beltran told the press that he felt “comfortable” in right and that he is seeing the ball well at the plate. It’s good that Beltran is seeing the ball well, but that’s not the issue — the issue is whether he can run. And the answer is that he can’t: Beltran’s knees are wobbly, which is clear every time he takes the field.

This isn’t the only worry for Mets fans. The continuing financial problems of the Wilpons mean that the Mets will not be able to afford the kind of acquisitions the team desperately needs, the starting rotation is stocked with question marks, Ike Davis is not turning into the kind of superstar Mets fans had hoped for, the farm system is thin-thin-thin, the team is crippled by hefty salaries for so-so players (like Francisco Rodriguez, who was booed by the fans during team introductions on Friday), the team’s ace (Johan Santana) may not pitch at all this season, no one knows when Jason Bay will return (or whether he’ll return as the Jason Bay of old), and “ace” Mike Pelfrey might be imploding.

There is good news: Jose Reyes is healthy, David Wright remains an elite third baseman and the bullpen is young and strong. And new manager Terry Collins (not known for his patience) might be just the kind of go-get-em personality the team needs. Still, Met fans are likely to be disappointed by the team in the coming campaign and it may be past time (as one scout told Sports Illustrated) for the franchise to “blow it up and start over.”

Sooner or later there was bound to be an N.L. East team that was worse than the Nationals, and now it turns out there likely will be. This is hardly a palliative for long-suffering Nationals fans, particularly since the death spiral of the team in question has as much to do with its off-field woes as it does with its on-field performance. Or more. The New York Mets have had troubles putting together a coherent line-up for some time now, but news that the Mets’ owners, the Wilpon family, are having trouble balancing the books is probably the last piece of evidence anyone needs to show that the Mets are not what they once were. Of course, we’ve said this before: last year, CFG announced immodestly that the Nats would finish ahead of the Mets in the “N.L. Least” — words that we had to eat ignore when a final accounting came do. Never fear: this is the year of the Nats.

And, in many ways, it’s also the year of the Mets. Rumors started to circulate early last season that the Mets were having financial troubles, the result of Bernie Madoff’s siren song financial promises to Mets owner Fred Wilpon. It’s not known exactly how much Wilpon lost in the Madoff scandal, but it was appreciable enough for Wilpon to ask Major League Baseball for a $25 million loan. Commissioner Bud Selig, a Wilpon fan, tossed over the money, hoping to stabilize the franchise and keep the team out of bankruptcy. It was that bad. Selig then recommended Wilpon hire baseball guru Sandy Alderson — and, as any businessman will tell you, when the bank holding your paper makes a suggestion, you usually take it. As it turns out, the $25 million-plus-Alderson may not be enough. New York newspapers are awash with reports that the team faces a mid-season fire sale of some of its best players just to stay afloat; that, or the Mets will relieve their financial distress by finding new owners.

The impact of this is being felt on the field. New York’s John Delcos’ writes: an ownership transition may be in the works, which means the Mets “will attempt to deal Carlos Beltran this July, doing everything it can from having Francisco Rodriguez’s $17.5 million option kick in, and after the season ridding itself of Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.” Can franchise cornerstone David Wright be far behind? Writing in the New York Post, Joel Sherman says Alderson’s job will be to slash the Mets’ payroll from $140 million to $70 million — which means everything (and everyone) will be on the table. The Wilpons, Sherman writes “are fighting ardently to retain the team, and it would not be unique for an ownership in financial hell to make its costliest players available. For the Mets, that would mean not only the free-agents-to-be, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes, but also Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez, Johan Santana, and, yes, even seeing what would be available for organizational icon David Wright.”

There isn’t anything here that is fair to Mets’ fans, who don’t like the Wilpons to begin with: they’re the ones who will have to watch as the Mets are made to pay for the Wilpons’ poor judgment. Nor is it particularly just to note that the Chokes (we promised not to use that term, but then . . .) were breaking down even before Bernie’s appearance — Jose Reyes is not the same player he was in 2006, Carlos Beltran continues to fight injuries, David Wright is having trouble hitting the long ball in the new stadium, Johan Santana’s arm is hanging by a thread and Oliver Perez is, well . . . you know. “I don’t think any NL East team would trade all the players in their organization for those of the Mets,” Sherman writes. “Even the Nationals can imagine their next three-to-seven years being better than the Mets’ simply by having Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg under control.” Which is only to conclude with this irony — while Nats fans complain endlessly about the Lerners (the “slow Lerners” as one of our readers recently commented), compared to the Wilpons they look absolutely enlightened.

The New York Mets won a wild one in St. Louis — a twenty inning marathon that lasted seven hours. The final line is memorable: both teams used 46 players and 19 pitchers, racking up the seventh longest game in Major League history. The Mets hold the record for playing in the longest game, a 24 inning 1-0 loss to the Astros on April 15, 1968. But the Mets were on the winning end of this one. Together, Mets and Cardinals pitchers threw a combined 652 pitches, lowering team batting averages and ERAs. For a time it looked as if the Red Birds would win, even after Cards manager Tony La Russa chose third sacker Felipe Lopez to pitch the 19th and and left fielder Joe Mather to pitch the 20th. La Russa was apparently saving his team’s arms, but it looked like the Cardinals were waving the white flag. But the game took one final turn: left-fielder-turned-reliever Joe Mather served up a sacrifice fly in the 20th to put the Mets ahead 2-1. Mike Pelfrey, normally a starter, came on to record the save — the first of his career.

The Mets 2-1 win was done by scratching and clawing, for while starter Johan Santana gave the Apples seven badly need well-pitched innings (he gave up only four hits), the Mets biggest bats remained strangely silent. David Wright, Jason Bay and Jeff Francoeur were 1 for 20, and Bay looked particularly ineffective. Bay, who is hitting .222, struck out four times. The Mets-Cards tilt provided an unusual Saturday, even for a baseball fanatic. It was possible to watch Livan Hernandez pitch at Nats Park and then drive home in time to catch every pitch of the Busch Stadium death march. The game wiped out Fox’s Saturday prime time programming and pushed back by one hour the slot for the local news. It was worth it, if only to tally a semi-rare baseball anamoly — Mets relieved Francisco Rodriguez (K-Rod), came on in the 19th to get the save for the Mets, but the Cards tied the score. But the Mets scored again in the top of the 20th and Jerry Manuel brought starter Mike Pelfrey in to to do what K-Rod couldn’t. When Pelfrey succeeded, sending the Mets back to their hotel for a badly needed rest, K-Rod registered a blown save — and a win.

At the same time that the Mets and Cards were marching up Golgotha, Rockies’ starter Ubaldo Jimenez, the best fastball pitcher in the majors, threw the first no hitter in Colorado franchise history. The no-hitter was unusual in this sense: Jimenez was not particularly effective until the 6th inning when, following the advice of former Mets fireballer and now Rockies’ pitching coach Bob Apodaca, he began to pitch from the stretch. “I saw [the Giants' Tim] Lincecum last year do it,” Jimenez said after the game. “He wasn’t good from the windup, then he got from the stretch. It came to my mind. But then Apodaca came to me and I was like, ‘Of course, I’m going to try it.’” It worked. Jimenez began to put the ball down in the zone, and the walks that characterized his first five frames ceased.

Describing Jimenez as “the silent giant,” Rockies’ manager Jim Tracy was buoyed by the win and filled with praise for his starter: “In order for special things to happen, you have to have special people,” Tracy said of Jimenez. “We have a whole clubhouse full of them. But this is this man’s night tonight. In my opinion, it couldn’t happen to a better human being and a more talented human being than this guy.” The Jimenez no-no marked the third complete game of the day, an unusual occurrence in modern baseball. On Saturday, complete games were put in the books by Jimenez, Florida Marlin Ricky Nolasco — and Washington Nationals’ ace Livan Hernandez.

The Nats head to New York to face the faded and no-account New York Chokes after being swept in three games in Philadelphia. The latest instance of Nats futility was a 4-2 sigh at the hands of Phuzzie lefty Cole Hamels, who appears to have returned to his 2008 end-of-season form. Hamels, pitching like he meant it, had a perfect game through five. Up and down all season, Hamels attributed his good outing to the heat of the pennant race: “I think it’s being able to go out there, knowing what’s at stake,” he said following his outing. “I think anytime September rolls around, and fortunately enough, I’ve been here when we’ve had to win every game. You still have to go out there.” Hamels was aided in his victory by the continued no-show of Washington lumber: Guzman, Zimmerman and Willingham were a combined 2 for twelve against the lefty (Dunn, the only Anacostia bopper who’s actually hitting was given the night off), bringing the middle-of-the-order Nats to a stunning 2 for 27 over the last two games. If there was any good news from the last game of the sweep it was that Ross Detwiler looked passably competent: pitching five innings of four hit ball — for his sixth loss without a win.

The New York Stinks host the Nationals today on the heels of a five game losing streak, which included a just-yesterday three game sweep at the hands of the Chops, and a record of 1-9 over their last ten games. The good news for Mets fans is that they won’t have to suffer through a September collapse this year: they did that all the way back in June. The Mets are in terrible shape. Unlike the Nats, they don’t seem to have a firebrand prospect (Ian Desmond) wowy-zowing the crowd, or a potential game-changing hatchling (Stephen Strasburg) waiting to flap his wings, or a tested and still-young lumberjack (Adam Dunn) that can put the horsehide in the cheap seats. Even the most tried and truly tested Chokes’ fanatics are desperate. We here at CFG say that advisedly because the last time we talked about the Chokes at any great length there were riots in New York. We had to put on our kevlar. We had to call in airstrikes. Even so, we’ll give it another try: so what should the Mets do.

Over at The Real Dirty Mets Blog, Rusty has been going on about shaking up the dugout — a “bold move” that would change the tectonics of Citi Field and give the Moribunds some hope. His recommendation? Bring in Orel Hershiser. Not a bad idea. Hershiser has been in the running for a number of managerial posts (Rusty points out) and he was “a thinking man’s pitcher.” Hershiser might, in fact, be the spark the Mets need to shake up the on-field operations. What I mean to say is this: Jerry Manuel has lost faith in his players, and they’ve returned the favor. Manuel has made a hash of the season (injuries or no injuries) and he’s flapped his mouth on so many things so often that it’s hard to figure out what he really thinks. Worse yet, he doesn’t know how to handle the kids.

In truth, the great collapsable Mets don’t have many young stars that could form the nucleus of a future pennant winner, but even if they did Jerry wouldn’t know what to do with them. I’ll give you three examples. There was a lot riding on Mets Daniel “can’t miss” Murphy this year. The Chokes needed a big bat from one of their youngsters and Murphy was picked to supply it. Unfortunately, after 27 games the Mets’ brain trust (Manuel concurring) decided that Danny boy couldn’t play left (they called him “a disaster”), so they switched him and his leather rag to first, in the apparent belief that playing first is easier. As recently as early August, the Mets were trumpeting what a fantastic move the switch had been. But the shine has worn off and when Murphy made two errors on Wednesday, you could hear the groans all the way to Secaucus. Then too, Murphy’s ”big bat” has disappeared: going AWOL at just about the same time that the genius’s in the Mets front office decided that DM would look great at first. 

The same kind of thing happened to Bobby Parnell, who began his career as a whiz-bang reliever, giving so much hope to Mets’ faithful that they were charting the World Series parade route down Broadway. The Mets finally had the one thing that might have saved them from the Tsunami of their 2007 season: a home grown reliever who enjoyed his job and did it well. So what did the Mets do? They spent a boatload of money on a couple of free agent relievers and took Bobby out of the bullpen and made him a starter: in the belief that anyone who’s a good reliever will be an even better starter. So, how’s that worked out? Since arriving on the mound, Parnell’s ERA is 5.60 and Jerry and Company keep talking about how he’s “a work in progress.” Most recently, the Chokes announced that “the experiment” was over and that Parnell was back behind the fence in center. It was the right decision. No doubt about it. But, as usual, the also-rans did it in exactly the wrong way: they treated it like a demotion. Mets fans blame Parnell for his failure as a starter. Jerry Manuel blames Parnell for his failure as a starter. The GM blames Parnell for his failure as a starter. Now they’ve set him up to fail as a reliever. Guess what: it’s not his fault.

Then there’s Mike Pelfry. The way the Mets have handled Pelfrey tells us all we need to know about the problems with the team. Pelfrey is the one guy (he’s 25) who has the kind of stuff and tenacity the Mets need. He throws hard and shrugs off losses with an I’ll-get-em-next-time attitude. Along with his better-than-average stuff, he’s a gamer who’s only going to get better. Strangely, that’s not good enough for Jerry and Company, who lost faith in Pelfrey in early September after a rocky outing against the . . . Rockies. And things haven’t been quite the same since. This is classic Mets stuff: one or two bad outings and Manuel starts looks like he’s about the weep, the front office issues reassurances to the fans that next year’ll be different and Fred Wilpon passes out radiation sickness tablets. It’s almost as if they’re signaling to Pelfrey that unless he pitches like Johan Santana he’s just no damn good.

But all is not lost. There’s hope in Metsland. Jose Reyes (once the best shortstop in the game) will return in 2010. As will Carlos Beltran. Eric, over a The Real Dirty Mets Blog, thinks that, because of the injuries to Reyes and Beltran in 2009, the Mets won’t trade them, but will try to win with them next year. They’re good, very good — and they’re the core. They’ll give it one more shot. But Eric adds: “I believe that next year will be the last for the core unless they win.” Will they? There’s a reason why you never hear the phrase “good team, bad shortstop,” and it’s because the heart of any winner is the guy up the middle with the soft hands. Reyes has that, and the bat to go with it. If he’s anything like he was just three years ago, the Mets will instantly improve. Add Beltran, a still-in-his-prime long ball hitter and game changer and the Mets (with Johan and Maine and a healthy bullpen) are (arguably) a better-than-.500 team and good enough to challenge for the wild card. But here’s the thing: even with all of that, the Mets need a change in culture and they need it desperately. They might want to start in the dugout.

There were two miracles in 1969: Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and the New York Mets won the World Series. But it’s worth remembering that on this date — when Armstrong landed the “Eagle” at “Tranquility Base – the Mets were nowhere near being a playoff team, while the Chicago Cubs were in first place in the NL East and running away with the division. By early August the Cubs led the Mets in their division by nearly nine games. The North Siders had an almost perfect squad — a mix of power and speed with one of the strongest starting pitching staffs in the majors. The front four of Ferguson Jenkins, Bill Hands, Ken Holtzman and Dick Selma terrorized the National League, accumulating 68 of the team’s 92 wins. The Cubs closer, Phil Regan, accounted for another twelve. Which is to say: in 1969, five Cubs pitchers accounted for 80 of the team’s 92 wins.

The Cubs were assembled by clever design, though baseball experts and onlookers scoffed at a front office that had always proven inept. The key trade brought prospects Ferguson Jenkins and Adolfo Phillips from Philadelphia (two decades later the Phillies traded another prospect to Chicago — Ryne Sandberg) for aging starters Bob Buhl and Larry Jackson. A second, though just as important trade (in 1965) had brought catcher Randy Hundley and starter Bill Hands to Chicago for outfielder Don Landrum and fading reliever Lindy McDaniel. Sports Illustrated howled with laughter — how could the Cubs trade one of the league’s best relief pitchers for two unknowns? The Cubs had a great team of hitters (with Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Billy Williams the keys), but the Cubs of ’69 could not have won without the trades they swung to build their starting rotation. 

The Mets, on the other hand, were almost exclusively assembled from within. Future Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver was in his third year (as was Jerry Koosman), Gary Gentry was a rookie and no one in the starting nine was over 30. The unlikely linchpin of this group might well have been Ed “Steady Eddie” Kranepool, an otherwise light-hitting first baseman who swung the bat like Joe Dimaggio from August on out. From mid-August until late September, the Mets went on a tear, while the Cubs faded fast. The Mets won 38 of their final 49 games, while the Cubs suffered a mid-September eight game losing streak that saw them sink into second place. They finished with 92 wins, but it wasn’t enough. The Mets took the division flag, with 100. The difference between the two teams was a swing of a startling 17 games over a period of two months: a swoon that Cubs fans have never forgotten.

The Cubs-Mets pennant race of 1969 is a model of how to build contenders. The Cubs spent nearly half-a-decade ridding themselves of aging pitchers (Buhl and Jackson, but also McDaniel), trading them for well-scouted prospects, like Hands and Jenkins. The staff was supplemented by a gaggle of home grown greats: Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks — but also double play combo Glenn Beckert and Don Kessinger. The Mets rejected the blockbuster trade and stayed patient, being satisfied with developing hard throwing youngsters and very good (but not great) position players. Cleon Jones was homegrown, as was Kranepool, Bud Harrelson, Ken Boswell and slick-fielding-no-hit third sacker Wayne Garrett. While 1969 preceded the era of free agency, it’s still astonishing how the pieces the Mets developed clicked into place in one season.

Fifty years later, the Mets seem to have forgotten the lesson taught by the ’69 Amazin’s. The New York Metropolitans of 2009 are a patchwork of free agents and aging stars — with few homegrown talents that can carry the team. Every major position player except for Daniel Murphy and David Wright is over 30 and the team’s biggest bopper, Gary Sheffield, is 40. Alex Cora and Luis Castillo are 33, Brian Schneider is 32,  The pitching staff is not manned by young rising arms, but by a veritable line-up of sieves. There is one great pitcher on the staff, Johan Santana, but he’s from somewhere else. Livan Hernandez is 34. The one home grown asset, Mike Pelfrey, has a plus-5 ERA and the number five starter is Tim Redding — who is on the verge of changing residences. In 1969, the Mets’ number five starter was 22-year-old Nolan Ryan. Mets’ faithful complain of the baffling injuries suffered by the team, but what’s the big surprise? Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado are 32 and 37 respectively.

This hobbled, aging and choatic group come into Nats Park tonight to face-off against our Anacostia Boys. It’ll be a test for them — they need to win the series to stay in contention. My bet is that that won’t happen and that the fading Mets will fade further as the summer wanes. Of course, the Mets have been counted out before, as they were in 1969. But this team is not the “Miracle Mets” — it’s the wing-and-a-prayer Mets. For them to end up in the post-season would take a miracle even greater than Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.