No. Go past this, past this part. In fact, never play this again.

– Dark Helmet.

If you missed last night’s Mets-Nationals game, you found a much more satisfying way to spend four hours and fifteen minutes. Holy crap.

If you’re a glutton for punishment, here’s some brain-dumping:

– Not Scott Hairston’s fault.

– The play in the photograph above wasn’t really all that terrible, it was just the image on the AP wire that best embodied the game. Omar Quintanilla came about 10 inches from making what would have been one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. Jordany Valdespin, on the other hand, should not play shortstop. Remember all those times I said how Valdespin made 32 errors in 98 games at the position last year? I guess that’s what it looked like. And it’s not pretty. Kudos to him for crushing the ball twice to keep the Mets in the game, but not for ultimately booting it away.

– Daniel Murphy also did not play well on defense. I’ve defended Murphy’s defense all year as a work-in-progress that seems to be improving, but the errors are bad. Since he’s not likely to be a rangy second baseman ever, he needs to make the plays that are hit at him.

– The injuries definitely caught up with the Mets last night, most notably in the short-handed bullpen. I suspect Jon Rauch would be on the disabled list already if the Mets had an obvious answer on the 40-man roster to call up in his stead. They don’t. The only healthy, eligible pitchers on the 40-man are Jeurys Familia, who has walked 6.4 batters per nine innings in Triple-A this year, Jenrry Mejia, who started on Monday, and Robert Carson, who has been hit hard every time he’s been called on in a Major League game this season. Pedro Beato is eligible to come off the 60-day DL, but the Mets will have to take someone off the 40-man to get him back and he pitched two innings Monday. With Jason Bay expected to come off the disabled list today, there’ll likely be some roster shuffling.

– Chris Young was decent and very Chris Young-ish. At one point in about the 5th inning, when Young and Jordan Zimmermann were cruising, I thought, “I’m really tired and I might get to bed early tonight.” Whoops.

– Not Bobby Parnell’s fault either. Parnell threw a wild pitch that eluded Josh Thole and ultimately allowed the Nats to tie the game, but he also had three groundballs booted behind him.

– Also probably not Elvin Ramirez’s fault. Ramirez, perhaps having seen what his infield defense looked like, walked a batter and struck out the side in his first inning of work. In his second he appeared spent, but the Mets were playing two men short in the bullpen and with a limited starter.

– After his two shutout innings last night, Miguel Batista now has a 101 ERA+ with woeful peripherals. For his career, Miguel Batista has a 101 ERA+ with woeful peripherals. Miguel Batista appears to be Miguel Batistaing.

– Keith Hernandez lost his patience in extra innings and it was hilarious. He called Ross Detwiler a “rockhead,” which he probably could have used to describe nearly everyone who played in or watched the game. Besides Scott Hairston, of course.

– It’s only one game. Thankfully.

But there’s a niggling question that no one can bring themselves to verbalize—could it have been even better if someone other than Johan Santana was the one to break the streak? Does an individual effort mean more if it comes from someone more closely identified with the team?

Santana’s not beloved. He came to Queens a mercenary, and has anchored some of the more disappointing seasons in Mets history. He’s missed more than a full year, making it impossible to view his massive contract as anything but a disappointment so far. He’s not, for lack of a less disgusting crosstown term, a “True Met.” No one’s going to be wearing his throwback Mets jersey in 30 years. Maybe all that is forgiven and forgotten now, as he’s the central figure in what’s sure to be one of the franchise’s immortal moments, and maybe he’ll lead these likable Mets to an unlikely playoff run. Still, can a Mets fan look him or herself in the mirror and say they wouldn’t rather have had burgeoning folk hero R.A. Dickey be the one to finally break the curse? Or even a homegrown product like Niese or Gee?

– Barry Petchesky, Deadspin.

Wait… really? Maybe I’m out of touch with Mets fans, but is this something anyone — like anyone in the world — actually considered? That’s not a rhetorical question. Please, if you can produce any evidence that there’s a Mets fan anywhere besides members of Dillon Gee’s family who would have preferred Dillon Gee throw the Mets’ no-hitter, link it or describe it in the comments section below. And that’s nothing against Gee; he’s just not Johan Santana.

If it were Ollie Perez or Chris Young or Miguel Batista, maybe. But really, Johan Santana was not beloved? The guy who’s the best pitcher the Mets have had since Dwight Gooden?

I’m trying not to get too worked up over silly things I read these days, and the joke is probably on me for linking to it. But this one just seemed too far out there to let go. Unless, again, I’m way off-base. So help me out:

[poll id=”108″]

The Mets drafted high-school shortstop Gavin Cecchini and Purdue catcher Kevin Plawecki last night. Based on my extensive research, I can confirm that they are indeed human beings who play baseball. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. Toby Hyde has more at MetsMinorLeagueBlog.com, as does Alex Nelson at Amazin’ Avenue.

Generally, I never feel too strongly about the players the Mets choose in the draft, since I’m not a scout and I certainly haven’t spent nearly as much time researching amateur players as the Mets’ scouting department. To boot: They have a veritable army of trained scouts tracking amateur players across the country, and I am one guy who never pays any attention to the draft until a couple of days before it happens.

Since drafting is sort of a crapshoot in all sports — and especially baseball — the process seems more important than the specifics. And this year, thanks to new rules about slot compensation in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it’s hard to figure what makes for the best draft process. So I’ve got nothing.

Maybe Cecchini and Plawecki develop into superstars, maybe they suck. Most likely they’ll fall somewhere in the middle. The general consensus among people who know about this type of stuff seems to be that the Mets drafted a couple of high-floor, lower-ceiling players, but then, really, who knows? It’s almost cliched to mention this now, but Albert Pujols was drafted in the 13th round in 1999, when he was less than two years away from being a Hall of Fame-caliber hitter. No one drafted Brandon Beachy in 2008, and he’s leading the NL in ERA. Et cetera, et cetera. I’ll let you know how the Mets’ 2012 draft was in, like, six years.

If we take away Santana’s no hitter, or even qualify it, we’d have to similarly invalidate or downgrade pretty much everything that has ever happened in the history of baseball. The record books would contain nothing but asterisks.

– Matthew Callan, Amazin’ Avenue.com.

This. Qualifications of Santana’s no-hitter are so blisteringly stupid that they probably don’t deserve a response as thorough and considered as Callan’s. It happened. Johan Santana pitched a full nine-inning game and allowed zero hits. That’s a no-hitter. OK bye.

Since Johan Santana’s underwhelming start against the Pirates on May 21, Santana and R.A. Dickey have combined to throw 41 1/3 innings in five starts and have allowed one earned run over that time, good for a 0.22 ERA. They have struck out 45 batters and walked five, allowing 19 hits over the stretch.

Oh, also the Mets are currently tied for first place, despite the injuries and the LOLMets.

Johan Santana threw a no-hitter tonight. It was the Mets’ first in 8,020 games since they started playing in 1962. And it was awesome.

This is a time when I should try to string together coherent thoughts, but my Mets-fan excitement is making it difficult. So here are some incoherent thoughts:

– With one out in the ninth inning, I ditched the press box for a standing spot in the Excelsior level behind home plate. It was — obviously — the first truly great moment I’ve seen at Citi Field. The crowd produced a shrill, steady whoop throughout the frame, swelling to a roar when Santana notched the second strike on David Freese’s foul ball.

Maybe this is embarrassing to admit, but I was trembling. I’m not entirely sure if it was from excitement, caffeine or the cold, but I stood there shaking in my shoes as Santana chased the Mets’ first no-hitter. Sure, it’s one game, and no-hitters are frivolities in some way, and I know it’s not actually as important as a team clinching the pennant or — imagine — winning the World Series. But then it’s baseball. Who’s to say what about it is important and what isn’t when it’s inherently unimportant?

I’ve been a Mets fan since 1987, conscious of the possibility (and unlikelihood) of their first no-hitter until the opponents’ first hit in every single Mets game I’ve watched in my entire life. The pining long predates my understanding of batting average on balls in play and baseball’s pervasive randomness and all that. I honestly don’t know what it’ll be like to watch a Mets game now without this eventuality looming.

I hugged a maintenance guy and high-fived a security guard. I probably shouldn’t have celebrated with my credential on, but whatever. It felt awesome. It actually reminded me of the Grand Slam Single game from 1999 — the way the whole stadium came together: a massive, raucous family reunion.

– Speaking of Mets fans: Mike Baxter. If you somehow missed it, Baxter slammed against the left-field wall full-speed on a running catch in the seventh inning that saved the no-hitter. Baxter said afterward that he would have made the same play if it were a close game that wasn’t a no-hitter, and maybe that’s true. We haven’t seen enough of Baxter to really know.

But I find it difficult to believe that anyone who grew up a Mets fan isn’t standing out in left field thinking the whole damn time about the gravity of the situation. I’m projecting here, but I like the idea that Mets-fan Mike Baxter was going to do absolutely everything he could to preserve Santana’s effort. And he did.

After he crashed into the wall, Baxter crumpled up on the warning track but somehow held onto the ball. When he was finally helped off the field by the Mets’ trainers, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. It was a beautiful moment. Please do your part to make sure Mike Baxter never pays for a beer in New York ever again.

– Terry Collins said before the game that, by his understanding, the most important thing he had to do to keep Santana healthy in his recovery from shoulder surgery was limit the lefty’s pitch counts to about a 115-pitch maximum. Santana threw 134 in this one. Collins choked back tears throughout his post-game press conference and said he’ll feel awful if Santana can’t pitch in five days.

For the sake of accountability, I should mention that I tweeted that it seemed like the best idea to take Santana out after he had thrown 120 or so pitches through 8. Obviously I’m glad that didn’t happen. Also, from the sounds of it, no one but Santana was going to take Santana out of that game. You remember how he feels about coming out of games before he wants to, right? The “I’m a man! I’m a man!” thing?

– Johan Santana is a man.

– Oh, so there were a couple of questionable calls by umpires. A line drive down the third-base line by Carlos Beltran, notably, appeared to hit the line. But guess what? Bad calls, for better or worse, go both ways. The Mets have lost games and seasons on bad calls. That evens out. It worked out in their favor tonight. Also, if this game happened in 1997 before HD TV and the Coors Light Freeze Frame and everything else, they’d have replayed that foul ball a couple of times, everyone would have shrugged, like, “whoa, that was close,” and then we’d never make a whole thing out of it.

– no-hitter no-hitter no-hitter no-hitter!

– R.A. Dickey called Santana “supernatural” after the game. That happens to be the name of the (Carlos) Santana album featuring “Smooth,” the song to which Santana warms up. I have hated this song since it got wildly overplayed immediately after it came out, but while Santana was warming today, I found myself thinking, “Man, (Johan) Santana’s going to make me like this song.” No-hitter!

You’ve won this time, Rob Thomas:

There are, I’m pretty sure, like three Mets fans left who blame Carlos Beltran for signing a massive contract or for not swinging at Adam Wainwright’s curveball in 2006 or for neglecting the advice of the Mets’ crack medical staff before the 2010 season or for destroying the team’s clubhouse chemistry with his “expected & than” return later that year.

Those people are silly, and because silly people can sometimes be exuberant with their silliness and revel in the attention it brings them, they’re loud with their opinions on Twitter, in comments sections and probably on WFAN if you’ve got the stomach for listening. By now, after Carlos Beltran left Flushing as one of the Mets’ five best position players of all time and gave the team a prized pitching prospect as a parting gift, the haters and blamers get drowned out and shouted down pretty quickly. But then everyone — myself included — harps on their continued existence, as if there aren’t three people in India who think Gandhi totally sucked and three at Microsoft who think Bill Gates was a moron, and so on.

Carlos Beltran sat in the Cardinals’ dugout before Friday night’s game and answered questions from members of the New York and St. Louis media for about 20 minutes. He talked about his time with the Mets, the disappointing finishes of 2006 and 2007, his friends on the team (“I love him,” he said of Johan Santana), his appreciation for Terry Collins, his arrival in St. Louis, everything.

And he talked a lot about Mets fans, mostly because he was asked a lot about Mets fans. When asked why they never embraced him, he suggested it’s because he isn’t very emotional on the field and never wanted to betray himself by acting like something he is not. Stuff you know about, really. And he kept saying, “that’s their choice,” because probably — and hopefully — Carlos Beltran knows enough about baseball to realize that Carlos Beltran is awesome at baseball no matter what anyone says.

And after the third or fourth question about Mets fans and why so many of them don’t really like him (even though I suspect most of them do), he said, “Maybe there were fans here that didn’t treat me how I expected. But there were other fans here who treated me with love.”

The Mets showed a short pre-game video tribute to Beltran. It featured lots of highlights of Carlos Beltran playing baseball, so it was unutterably awesome. Then everyone (in my earshot, at least) who was at the game, paying attention and moved enough to respond in some way cheered the man. Some reported hearing boos. I heard none.

I moved out from the press box to Section 327 of the Excelsior level* before Beltran’s first at-bat. When Beltran was introduced, one guy I could hear booed him loudly and persistently. One guy. Everyone else in the area clapped, some standing as they did. It was a much, much warmer reception than the one Jose Reyes received a month earlier.

Again: When you — we — defend Beltran against his remaining Mets-fan haters, we are likely giving way too much credence to a handful of loud fools and an army of strawmen. And Beltran’s best defense is his great offense, to borrow a football phrase. Every time he steps on a baseball field, Beltran makes the blamers look dumber.

We can spare them our energy now. Carlos Beltran’s got this.

*- Can someone please make t-shirts that say “I’m calling it Loge”?