Mets 5, Astros 3 (17 innings)

On the same Saturday a Miguel Cairo gaffe gifted a 13 inning win for the Halos at Yankee Stadium, and Jonathan Papelbon proved failable in Detroit — plunking Sheff and giving up a game-winning gapper to I-Rod in the last of the 13th — the Mets were victorious in the day’s longest marathon. The 17 inning, 5 hour, 9 minute affair at Ken Lay Memorial Field would have ended far sooner (well, the last of the 14th) were it not for a spectacular running-uphill grab by Carlos Beltran to rob gun nut doting Xtian Luke Scott, a catch the Astros’ own FSN Houston TV crew deemed “the greatest ever made on this field”.

Though Beltran completed his heroics with an RBI single to score Jose Reyes in the top of the 17, breaking a 3-3 deadlock, equal credit has to go to the Mets’ relief corps, responsible for an incredible 10 scoreless innings. I’m not sure which is crazier, the Mets’ prediliction for never-ending games in Houston, or the fact that Scott Schoeneweis didn’t end up the losing pitcher in the last of the 12th.

Each team used 8 pitchers. Captain Red Ass couldn’t manage a thing against any of ’em ; in his first game back since serving a brief suspension, Paulie Large Nuts was 0-8 on the night.

Lastings Milledge’s rehab stint in the Eastern League continues to progress nicely. Da Edge was 2 for 5 with a triple and two RBI’s in Binghamton’s 5-4 loss to the Connecticut Defenders.