The Mets’ bats were back in the NLCS Game 6 tonight, starting with Jose Reyes’ leadoff homerun in the first inning, to beat the Cardinals 4-2 and force a Game 7 tomorrow night at Shea. Not to mention our main man, John Maine’s shutout pitching!

Maybe this really is the team, the time, the year, afterall.

Here’s tonight’s game in a nutshell:

Sense of October: After the Cardinals had threatened in the top half of the first, Reyes stepped to the plate against Carpenter. With the packed house of 56,334 chanting his name, Reyes ripped a 1-1 pitch over the right-field wall to give the Mets a 1-0 lead. The pumped-up crowd energized Maine and the Mets to defeat the Cardinals. […] Reyes became the fourth player in Mets history to lead off a postseason game with a home run.

As the Mets have seen time and time again this season, run support really does matter. Especially when a rookie pitcher like John Maine needs the extra support to get into his groove.

Even Billy Wagner came through in the ninth, after nearly giving thousands of Mets fans heart attacks. But that’s how he rolls.

And that’s the way you reduce the NLCS to what is essentially a 1-game series and force a Game 7. And the Mets did it in style.

The only real question is this: who is starting on the pitcher’s mound tomorrow night? Oliver Perez or Darren Oliver seem the likely choices. Of course, a group effort wouldn’t be out of the question, but if Perez wants to power through like Maine did tonight, then that would be great, too.

Or maybe its just about which team has the most heart:

“It won’t come down to matchups,” Mets third baseman David Wright said. “[Game 7] is going to be all about heart and who wants it more.

So tomorrow the Mets have a chance to clinch their first World Series berth since 2000. One game will decide whether the season ends tomorrow or if the Mets face the Tigers in the Fall Classic. If that doesn’t get you excited, then you are surely dead!

UPDATE: Oliver Perez will start Game 7.

The bats were back, as the Mets crushed the Cardinals in Game 4, 12-5, to even up the series. And Carlos Delgado continued to claim the postseason (his first) as his own!

Oliver Perez’s pitching was admirable, especially considering his limited postseason experience.

The team was back to form, with homeruns from Delgado, Carlos Beltran, and even David Wright:

“Our team, doesn’t matter how far behind we are in the game, we’re not going to quit,” [Carlos] Beltran said, having homered twice. “We’ve done it so many times this season, we believe in ourselves.”

Oh man, I’ve never felt so excited as when I watched those homeruns soaring over the outfield fence! I was jumping up and down, yelling “They’re back!” at the top of my lungs, and clapping my hands raw. This is the Mets year and no team, especially not the barely-made-it-to-the-playoff Cardinals, is going to stop this team’s momentum. Not this year!

Now let’s win Game 5, so we can come back to New York to launch us into the World Series!

LETS GO METS! LETS GO METS! LETS GO METS!

The Mets were 7 outs away from taking Game 2 at Shea Stadium tonight. But they lost to the Cardinals 9-6, after questionable decisions by Mets manager Willie Randolph.

Namely, leaving pitcher Guillermo Mota in the game way past the point where he lost track of the strike zone. Not to mention Billy Wagner, who came into the game and had a total meltdown, giving up the winning 3 runs in the ninth.

The Mets offensive practically gave the team the game — but only through the first 8 innings. Carlos Delgado tied a franchise record held by Rusty Staub in 1973, but hitting two homeruns that drove in 4 runs in total.

If only tonight’s game had only run 8 innings, instead of 9. The Cardinals were barely in it throughout the game, but the Mets ended up squandering 3-0, 4-2 and 6-4 leads. The Cards were essentially handed the game by playing well in one inning. Unfortunately for the Mets, that inning was the 9th.

This is NOT where the Mets wanted to be going into three games straight starting tomorrow at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. They can overcome tonight’s defeat, but winning the first two at home and making use of their homefield advantage would have been far preferential.

So now they need to take tomorrow morning to regroup and then go back to playing the baseball that got them where to the playoffs in the first place.

Incidentally, my night was not a total loss. I went over to watch the game at Jill’s and we had a blast. Despite a confusing lead-up to hanging out, we jumped in the Corolla to gather the ingredients for Jill’s famous cream cheese - salsa - cheese dip and also picked up some Ben & Jerry’s and soda along the way. Oh, and there was a special appearance by Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.

And guess what. Jill makes an amazing dip. I mean it. Combined with my Tostitos and a couple Smirnoff’s I picked up earlier, we were all set to watch Jill’s first(!) baseball game. And she really enjoyed it, heh. I know this because guess what we’re doing tomorrow night around 8pm…

Fred came over, too, and it was awesome to watch the game with another devoted Mets fan, no matter how unfortunate the outcome.

So a Mets lost was saved by good company.

Not as good as a Game 2 win, but it will suffice until we win tomorrow night in St. Louis! LETS GO METS! LETS GO METS! LETS GO METS!

ALSO: Delgado’s big night all for naught, Wagner plans to shake off rough outing

In a classic pitcher’s duel between Tom Glavine and Jeff Weaver, the Mets pulled off a Game 1 win on the powerful homerun hitting of Carlos Beltran.

And here we go, Mets fans! Are you excited? Woooooooo! This is our year!

It seemed like I was waiting forever for some homeruns and then Beltran delivered! Not to mention the awesome defensive plays by the Mets throughout the game, especially Beltran’s double play throw to first from on a fly ball to center and Carlos Delgado’s line-out grab in the ninth inning, both against Albert Pujols!

And on this year’s 20th anniversary of the Mets 1986 World Series Championship, my favorite Mets player of all time, Darryl Strawberry, was on-hand to throw out the ceremonial first pitch! Dar-ryl! Dar-ryl!

I noticed a fan in the crowd holding up an interesting sign during the game:

GLAVINE and MAINE and PRAY FOR RAIN!

Well, we saw Glavine at his best tonight, and last night was rain, so tomorrow is John Maine’s turn. All the rookie pitcher has to do is throw as well as he did in the division series and we we’ll have a good shot at winning Game 2.

Tonight’s attendance at Shea Stadium was 56,311 strong, a Mets’ NLCS record!

The TEAM. The TIME. The YEAR. The METS!!!