Bad Ollie; Rangers clinch

Oliver Perez was cruising through the first couple of innings. This was not the pitcher who was told he was out of shape coming back from the WBC. Then came a couple of walks to the bottom of the order and the wheels feel off in typical Ollie fashion. 8 runs later he's gone in the 5th and has an ERA of 16.62.

The Mets chipped away nicely. You almost had the feeling they were going to come back. However, Arthur Rhodes (who lately owns the Mets), David Weathers and Francisco Cordero were untouchable.

You can't blame Gary Sheffield for taking strike 3 in his first at bat as a Met. Leading off the 9th down two, you're just trying to get on base any way you can.

You knew the first loss was going to come sooner or later. At least they won the series. On to more pressing matters at the moment if you are a reader of Flushing the Garden.

The Rangers are in! They do it in the last couple of games of the season, like they usually do. Despite the great October, it never ends easy.

Don Van Massenhoven, who usually screws us, put the whistle in his pocket when Marty Biron appeared to have the puck covered early in the game, only to have the Rangers bang it in to take a 1-0 lead. It turned out to be huge.

Remember what I said about Crosby, Malkin and pig-face a couple of weeks back? Well, someone needs to deck Scott Hartnell. Pull him around the ice by his hair or something.

Ryan Callahan scored again. This guy is our star all of a sudden.

Unfortunately the Flyers could be a scary team come playoff time. They are saying their resident goon, Daniel Carcillo, played his best hockey last game and he looked pretty good today. Danny Briere was back to his scary little self today. It felt like it was the second round of the 2007 playoffs vs Buffalo out there watching him. And I didn't even mention Carter, Richards and Gagne.

Who was that on the ice for the Flyers with the name NODL on his back?

If Paul Mara is going to let that beard continue growing for the playoffs, I'd love to see a long run just to see how that thing turns out.

The question now is: do you hope for a Montreal point or two on Saturday and a Ranger loss on Sunday to get Boston instead of Ovechkin, Green and the rest of the Caps? Be careful what you wish for, you know how that turns out.

Mets 9, Reds 7

There we go, that's more like the stuff we're used to. A good old, sweat it out, load the bases in the 9th and hold on for the victory save. K-Rod decided to walk everybody, then get out of the bases loaded one out jam. That error on Delgado, a questionable call by the first base umpire for leaving the bag too early on the throw to first did not help matters.

Scary first inning for Mike Pelfrey, but he bounced back nicely.

Here's to more of the Carlos Delgado from the second half of last season. Nice to see that homerun out of the way early in the season.

Damn, JJ Putz gave up a run in the 8th. Sean Green allowed an inherited runner to score the inning before that. It's not supposed to be this way.

Why is David Wright sliding head first into home?

Let's erase the demons of 2005 by sweeping the opening series in the matinee today. Damn afternoon workday games.

Rangers 3, Canadiens 1

Just one more win and we're in. After a slow start, the Rangers must have received a talking to in the first intermission and dominated the rest of the way. Combined with the Florida loss in Philly they are now up 2 points with 2 to play, and own the tiebreaker. The Cheesesteaks now have to continue to help us by coming out flat on Thursday night in the first of a home and home.

For all his struggles as a Ranger, his success elsewhere, and cheap shots at current Rangers, I can't hate Alex Kovalev.

Carey Price looked like a mess out there tonight. Although that was a great stick save on Antropov in the third.

Those Subway ads put on the glass were annoying. To make matters worse they first appeared in the third period, completely throwing you off for the first few minutes.

Markus Naslund was noticeable out there tonight. And Chris Drury scored two goals!?

Let's wrap this up on Thursday. Don't need a due or die situation in Philadelphia on Sunday.

Mets 2, Reds 1

Aside from the new stadium, there has not been opinion and commentary on the Mets themselves here. With opening day now having come and gone, it's time to get going.

We have a bullpen now. Not since 2006 have we been able to say that. Yes it's only one game. But this is exactly what the braintrust had in mind over the winter meetings. Santana-Putz-K-Rod not quite. On this cold and frigid Cincinnati day, we needed Sean Green to come up big as well.

Daniel Murphy is awesome. He's the perfect #2 hitter and showed it with a patient at bat before launching one into the rightfield seats.

Freakin MLB gameday did not pick up the WFAN feed today. So those of us stuck at work without a radio and who did not speak Spanish had to listen to the Cincinnati feed (WADO, home of the Met broadcasts in Spanish, was available on Gameday radio). Made us root harder for Putz when those clowns were hoping for a walk and a blast from Votto in the 8th. Of course they made it a point to remind us that Votto hit a double off JJ while playing for Team Canada in the WBC. Sit down Joey!

Hey, Luis Castillo had a double.

The Mets offense picked up right they left off last season, leaving 50 men on base.

It was opening day, listening to the game at the office was not enough. The DVR was rolling come evening time. Welcome back Gary, Keith, and Ron. I only watched maybe a couple of innings of spring training, all 45 days or so of it.

Oh baby, baseball's back. Thanks to what the Mets have done the past couple of seasons I'm pretty numb to what the Rangers are doing right now. Although the same cities are kind of making it irritating. On the diamond, Philly gets in the last two years because we lose to Florida. Now on the ice, Florida could get in because we lose to Philly.

Bruins 1, Rangers 0

Same city, different coach/system, same result. I know Boston plays the trap, but does it not seem like every game in this building has been 0-0, 1-0 or 1-1? Oh, the exciting hockey.

The only thing that made this game watchable was Sean Avery inadvertently (hey, he was in the way!) knocking Tim Thomas in the back of the head in the third period during a TV timeout. It lead to a scuffle and what was going to be a Ranger power play but was changed to a 4 on 4 after the referees decided to look at the video replay on the scoreboard. Let's show a replay of every penalty on the video board from now on why don't we? Ugh.

For those criticizing Avery for that play, you should realize that he actually looked around to see if any officials were watching, did his thing, and almost got away with a Ranger power play. The worst thing that would have happened was a 4 on 4, which was the case. Of course Thomas was going to react like that- he's a hothead. If Thomas did not react, the refs would not have seen the originally strike by Avery and nothing would have been called. If anything, Avery got under Thomas' skin a bit, which was something that had to be done considering the way the game was going.

Turns out the Rangers got a power play not long after that 4 on 4 started and got a chunk of 4 on 3 time. Yet they still can't score. The power play is pathetic.

Florida goes out and wins the next night (against Pittsburgh, go figure- thanks Cindy) to force a tie for the 8th spot, with both teams having three games to play. Rangers have the tie breaker with the most wins. So they simply need to stay even in points with Florida in the last three. When all is said and done, it could be down to the last game at Philadelphia- Florida ends their season the night before.

Citi Field Review

After almost three years of looking at construction photos, it was finally time. The first game at Citi Field. Coming into the day, all that you could think was "just get me in the damn ballpark" considering the weather. It was a steady rain most of the day. Any other day you complain about the Mets not calling the game early enough and making people come in, pay for parking, pay for dinner and beers, sit for an hour, then find out there's no game. Not on this day. Just get us in, game or no game.

Going down the stairs to exit the "Mets/Willets Point" stop was nothing new. You get out and head left towards Gate E. No more. At the foot of the steps, you were transported to a different place. It's amazing, the last game last October, the new place was up and pretty much done on the exterior, yet this time without our big blue toilet bowl casting a shadow over it the scene is completely different. There was a sidewalk and new parking where what used to be day of game ticket sales and the Mets bullpen.

The Jackie Robinson Rotunda was packed as expected. It was just several minutes before first pitch, so we made our way over to the left field game walking along what used to be the spot for the old apple and just beyond the visitor's bullpen. How appropriate it was that the left field gate featured a silhouette of "the catch", not too far from the spot Endy gave us hope in game 7.

Damn the place smelled good as you walked in. If you were slightly hungry, you were quickly starving. We took the stairs up to the promenade. A good way to get the blood moving on a chilly evening. After nightmares of plexiglass and stairway obstruction, I was relieved to find that my seats were just fine. Perfect view of every scoreboard. Solid seats that you don't have to pull up. Maybe people will be less inclined to hop down seats when making their way down a section. I can't tell you how many broken seats I sat in at Shea.

After one inning, we left our seats to explore the park. Every line for food was at least a 10 minute wait. Centerfield on the field level was shoulder to shoulder. The early start and curiosity of the new place had people hungry and wandering. Wide concourses to ease congestion? Not today, but give it a few games.

Approaching kiddie field and the dunk tank came my first minor gripe. Where the video/audio of the game? No clue what's going on if you're out here. Maybe that will change by the opener.

The Pepsi Porch was above us, but how the heck do you get up there? That's for later. Over the bridge, we peered down at the old Shea apple. The 360 was completed as we arrived at the Rotunda. How quickly the place changes to a museum.

We can take elevators now? That we did, back up to the Promenade for dinner on the picnic tables behind homeplate.

Caesar's Club on the Excelsior level was very nice. A good place to warm up on a cool night or cool down on a steamy one. However, it's probably the only time we'll ever get in. There was no one checking tickets at the door we entered. They were everywhere else, and again later when we tried to get in again.

Exiting the club on the right field side we found the entrance to the Pepsi Porch. Again, another place to hang out and watch the game from a different vantage point. Those junkyards out back gotta go.

One other negative about the place is that maybe there are too many hiding spots. There were more than a few people lighting up to smoke.

An hour rain delay did not ruin things one bit. We were not really paying attention to the game anyway, but if we wanted to we wouldn't miss much. There are TVs everywhere you look. Except Kiddie Field of course.

The old apple in the bullpen plaza got a nice restoration job in the offseason. In a way you kind of wish they kept it dingy and beat up the way it was. It's a heckler's delight down there, with only a chain fence separating the fans from the visitor's bullpen.

Can you believe this is home now? I thought I was on a road trip and was expecting to either go back to my hotel after the game or drive a few hours to get home. Looking forward to a return on opening night and many more games after that. Oh yeah- the Mets beat the Red Sox and closed the game with Putz in the 8th and K-Rod in the 9th. Looking forward to many more results like that as well.

Hurricanes 4, Rangers 2

The Hurricanes are on fire. This should not have come as a surprise. As soon as the Rangers missed out on four first period power plays, you kind of knew they were done.

This other Ruutu is not much different than his brother. The season almost came to a sure end Ruutu bumping Lundqvist, who ended up down and hurting, holding his head. After some stretching of the arm/shoulder by Jim Ramsay, he shook it off and played on.

Congrats to Corey Potter who scores his first NHL goal. Dan Giradi scores his first in 50-something games. That tells you about the offense.

The Islanders, fully aware that they are hurting the Rangers, lay their usual egg versus Montreal, allowing the Habs to get a little further away in 7th.