Mike Piazza’s drive to left center in the 8th was a little too close for comfort. Hey Mike, you had hit two dingers already. You’ve gotten plenty of standing ovations in the last two nights so what’s the story? Look, here’s the deal, the Mets fans give you plenty of lovin’ but the Mets win, get it? If you had hit that one out of the park in the eighth, your guys could have won the game. We can’t have any of that.

You have to admit, for the first sixteen innings of this series, it was like Mike Piazza was still on the Mets. He received those tremendous standing ovations on Tuesday evening and it surely was heartwarming. It was good to see the love between Mike and the fans. He meant so much to the Mets for so long.

In yesterday’s blog, I said I wouldn’t mind if Mike launched one as long as the Mets were ahead by a few runs and sure enough that’s what happened. With the Mets leading four to nothing, Mike hit one of his patented opposite field shots over the right field fence. Another standing ovation for Mike and a current call to boot, hey what the hell, the Mets were still winning and it’s Piazza. Life is good at Shea Stadium. Then of course with the Mets winning four to one, Piazza launched yet another home run, this one a bomb into the picnic area. The crowd went nuts again, what a love fest between the Mets fans, the winning Mets on the field, and Piazza in the opposing dugout.

All us Mets fans were having our cake and eating it too. The Mets were winning behind excellent pitching from Pedro Martinez and our hero Mike Piazza had hit two home runs. Then came the eighth inning, Pedro was still in the game. After walking two with one out, who comes up but Mike Piazza. For the first time in this series, there was not an ovation in the crowd but unrest. You could sense the conflicted emotions coming from the stands. Where do the loyalties lye now, with Mike or with the Mets? My goodness I even heard a smattering of boos.

Randolph brought in Heilman, Piazza steps to the plate. On the first pitch, Mike hits a shot to deep left field. When the ball left the bat I thought of two Mike Piazza memories. The first one was the dramatic home run he hit on September 21, 2001 in the first New York game after 9/11. The ball was on the same trajectory. The second memory was from October of 2000 in the World Series. Piazza hit the ball, again the same trajectory but it fell short and Bernie Williams made the catch as the Yankees danced on our turf. To last night—Beltran goes back to the wall, is it gone, no Beltran makes the catch just short of the wall—two outs.

Funny, there were no cheers this time when Piazza went back to the dugout. No standing ovation, no banners held up exclaiming how much Mets fans love Mike. For the first time during this series, it was evident that Piazza is one of the bad guys now. Why he actually single handedly tried to beat his former team, and he almost did. Heilman got the third out and Wagner, the cardiac kid, gave up a home run to make it a one run game but he held on for the save.

So Mike Piazza really isn’t a Met anymore. Through the first game and seven innings of the second one, it sure seemed like he still was. I’m glad the Mets held on to win. As much as I like Piazza, it’s the Mets I root for. I would not have felt good last evening if Piazza had hit three home runs, the last one would have given the Padres the lead and ultimately the game. I was okay with the two, the Mets were still wining. But if he had hit that third one, well that just would have been down right rude, and after the great welcome back we gave him. I’m not sure if Piazza will play this afternoon, a day game after a night game. But I won’t be fooled today. The Mike Piazza that played for the Mets is gone. The guy on the Padres is just that, a Padre.

Extra Innings: With last night’s win, the Mets move to a season high 24 games over .500 and maintain their 13.5 game lead over the Phillies.

Quite a wild card race in both leagues – Minnesota leads the American League with Chicago and Boston within a game and a half. Toronto has an outside shot at 7.5 games out. In the National League, there are literally 10 teams in the wild card race; the farthest team is 6.5 games out.