A Lesser-Known Baseball Curse (updated 6/3)

You can’t help but feel bad for Armando Benitez. The Mets just spell poison for him. When he was in their bullpen, fans groaned when he was called in, because…well, because he just sucked, to be plain and simple. He blew more saves than a Kryptonite-addled Superman. Then he was sent to the Yankees. And much more quickly than the Mets’ front office had, the Yanks wised up and traded him to Seattle. He was bounced back to the Mets for the remainder of the 2003 season (only God and Brian Cashman knows why), but we’d had enough and he was packed off to Florida. Then something happened to him. We call it the “reverse curse.” Seems that when a mediocre-to-bad player is traded by the Mets, often he has the season of his career. It took getting out of New York for this to happen to him, And away from the fishbowl of the New York sports media, he shone, and came up with the lowest ERA of his career.

But every time he faced the Mets, something happened.

They knew how to get to him.

Unfortunately the reverse curse only seems good for a season, maybe two. And when Benitez wound up at San Francisco, every time he blew a save or walked in the winning run or just plain self-destructed, New York area reporters would say, “And Mets fans would have said, ‘we told you so.’”

Then the Giants came to Shea.

The pre-game coverage seemed to be dominated by one name – Bonds, Barry Bonds – and why he was sitting on the bench when nearly every Met fan with the transportation and the wherewithal had come to Shea to see the mega-man wield his bat, even if nearly every pitcher tries to pitch around him.

But it seemed like a pitchers’ duel broke out instead.

The two teams took a 3-3 tie into extra innings. When the Giants went ahead one run in the top of the twelfth, it looked like all was lost. While the Mets (I think) hold the record for extra-inning games, they don’t often win them. But this is a different Mets team this year. There seems to be something – and I hate to use this word – almost inevitable about them. From the camaraderie to the depth of their bench to the way they’re consistently winning, and that even when one of their big guns slumps, someone else picks up the slack.

But when the Giants called Benitez in to finish the game, hope in Shea sprang eternal once more. You have to thank Jose Reyes’ deadly speed on the bases - and the Mets’ knowledge of what rattles Benitez’s cage - for the tying run. He drew a walk, danced around threatening to steal, which unnerved Benitez enough so that he balked Jose to second. Endy Chavez sacrificed to move Reyes to third, and in a repeat performance, Armando balked in the tying run.

Then red-hot Carlos Delgado unloaded a walk-off homer – his second four-bagger of the night - to win the game.

And Armando, now 0-3 on the season, could do nothing but watch the ball sail over the fence, and his Mets’ curse continue.

Editor's note: Benitez was traded back to the Marlins last week. Let's hope he can get his groove back there.