Wait just a second while I take a tranquilizer thanks to Billy Wagner...  It all comes down to one game.  Thursday night at Shea Stadium the Mets and Cardinals will play the last game of the 2006 National League season. The winner goes to Detroit, the loser goes home.  After 171 games for the Mets, 103 wins and 68 losses, it all boils down to a one game season. In game 7 it's all hands on deck. Who will pitch? Oliver Perez and everybody else. Expect the bullpen to be more active than Grand Central Station. As Bob Murphy use to say, "it's time to fasten your seat belts". 

John Maine was outstanding.  He gave the Mets exactly what they needed.  And the bullpen was spectacular once again but I could have done with out the thrill ride from Wagner.  Never the less you have to give the Mets credit.  With a shattered starting rotation, they have managed to get themselves to the seventh and deciding game of the NLCS.  It will not be easy tomorrow night.  The Mets will send Perez to the mound on short rest while the Cardinals will pitch Jeff Suppan.  Remember Suppan shut out the Mets in game three. The Mets hitters must do what they did in game 6, score early and keep the pressure on the Cardinals. 

The Mets have responded to adversity all year long and they did it again tonight.  You have to consider that game 6 was the first real challenge the Mets have faced in a long time, perhaps all year.  Remember that it took the Mets a few games to clinch the division.  Needing one win to do it in Pittsburgh the Pirates swept the Mets.  In the NLDS the Mets swept the Dodgers so they did not face an elimination game then either.  We really did not know how the Mets would respond in a must win situation.  Well now we know.  Now can they do it again?   That's the question we will all ponder on Thursday as we nervously await the first pitch of game 7.