The lost Taco Bell ad with Jerry Manuel and Francisco Rodriguez

Inside a Taco Bell, JERRY MANUEL walks up to a CUSTOMER staring at his chalupa.

MANUEL

You're done, kid. You're slower than John Maine.

Manuel touches his left arm. The customer gets up and Manuel slaps him on the butt.

PEDRO FELICIANO walks over. He has put on a lot of weight.

FELICIANO

Skip, I don't feel too good.

CUSTOMER

This is what happens when you make him help finish a chalupa every day.

MANUEL
Fine, I'll just go to my closer.

Manuel slaps Feliciano on the butt. He touches his right arm.

As FRANCISCO RODRIGUEZ walks toward the chalupa, he passes the exiting customer.

CUSTOMER
Let's see if you can have a good outing for a change.

RODRIGUEZ
Excuse me?

CUSTOMER
You heard me.

The customer and Rodriguez start shoving each other. Rodriguez slips and falls, slamming his jaw on the corner of a table.

CUT TO:

Rodriguez sits glumly. His jaw is wired shut.

Trainer RAY RAMIREZ turns to Manuel.

RAMIREZ
I’m afraid he won’t be finishing any chalupas the rest of the season.

Manuel throws his hands in the air. OLIVER PEREZ approaches the chalupa.

Manuel slaps Ramirez on the butt.

RAMIREZ
Aren’t you supposed to slap Frankie?

MANUEL
You think I'm laying a hand on him?

Perez picks up the chalupa, cardboard packaging and all, and starts to put the whole thing in his mouth.

MANUEL
You're not supposed to eat the cardboard.

Perez takes the chalupa out of the box. But as he brings it to his face, he misses his mouth and the chalupa flies out of his hands and up in the air.

LUIS CASTILLO settles under the flying chalupa. It lands in his hands, then bounces out and hits the floor, splattering everyone with ground beef, nacho cheese, bits of taco shell and toppings.

At a nearby table, JEFF WILPON turns to SANDY ALDERSON.

WILPON
All right, Sandy - think you can clean up this mess?

Ron Artest, Oliver Perez and the Mets' amazing turnaround

On June 5, Oliver Perez was put on the DL. Since then, the Mets are 10-1. Much of the rise of the Mets has come from addition by subtraction.

The Mets started their season with several players who did not belong on a major-league roster. The Angels were willing to eat $20 million just to get rid of Gary Matthews Jr. The lowly Royals released Mike Jacobs.

Omar Minaya gave Jerry Manuel a problematic roster, but Manuel made it worse. On Opening Day, he started Matthews in center over Angel Pagan and batted Jacobs cleanup. John Maine and Perez were not only in the rotation without earning spots, but starting ahead of Mike Pelfrey, who had been demoted to fourth starter.

By the time the Mets admitted that Jacobs had to go and Ike Davis should be promoted, they were 4-8. Since then, the Mets are 34-20.

It took longer to get rid of Gary Matthews Jr. and Frank Catalanotto, but at least the Mets have the makings of a bench now with Chris Carter and Jesus Feliciano.

But when Perez refused to be demoted, the Mets faced a crisis. Lots of people wanted the Mets to cut Ollie, but it would have been a mistake to release Perez outright with a year and a half left on his contract. After being dumped by Detroit, Dontrelle Willis has a 1.80 ERA in two starts for Arizona. Jeff Suppan was awful with Milwuakee, but after the Brewers got rid of him, he was reunited with Dave Duncan in St. Louis and pitched well in his first start for the Cardinals.

If the Mets cut Ollie, you just know that someone would pick him up, straighten him out, at least briefly, and at the end of the season, Ollie would be pulling a Ron Artest and thanking his psychiatrist for helping him contribute to a title.

But when Ollie refused to go the minors, the Mets were stuck. They needed to clear a roster spot to activate Jon Niese from the DL. It's easy to look back in hindsight and say that they would have found a good way to get Niese back on the team, such as sending Jenrry Mejia to the minors. But with the kind of moves this team makes, who knows. Maybe Niese would not have been brought back right away.

Finally getting Ollie on the DL showed that the team wanted to win by getting rid of someone who was not putting the team first. And it opened up a spot for Niese, who has gone 3-0 since his return, sparking the 10-1 run.

Minaya has made some good moves, notably acquiring R.A. Dickey and Hisanori Takahashi. The combination of Rod Barajas and Henry Blanco is a huge upgrade at catcher.

Manuel is a dubious strategist, but under his leadership, the Mets are now half a game out of first, so he's got to get credit for that.

When the Mets first played the Yankees this year less than a month ago, I predicted a Yankee sweep and hoped the Mets could take a game. A lot has changed in a short time. I'm still going to have to with the Yankees since the Mets won't have their Citi Field advantage, but I expect the Mets to win at least one game and be competitive throughout the series.

Last year's trip to Yankee Stadium sparked the collapse of the season, thanks to Luis Castillo's drop and Johan Santana's implosion. Let's hope things are a lot better this time around!

Will WBC ruin Mets' season?

HOW MANY PITCHES WILL YOUR $36M STARTER THROW?

WILL YOUR NEW $37M CLOSER BE ASKED TO THROW ANOTHER FOUR-OUT SAVE?

TUNE IN TO THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC TO SEE MLB PLAY RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH YOUR STARS

DON'T DELAY! AT THE RATE THESE PITCHERS ARE BEING OVERUSED, YOU MAY NOT HAVE THE SAME CHANCE TO SEE THEM AT THEIR BEST DURING THE REGULAR SEASON!

There are some people who only watch a NASCAR race to see if there will be a crash. I wouldn't put it past Bud Selig to adopt a similar cynical marketing campaign for the World Baseball Classic.

Or is baseball so cynical that, now that Oliver Perez and Francisco Rodriguez have landed their guaranteed long-term contracts, it doesn't matter if they get hurt?

As Metsblog points out, Oliver Perez threw 85 pitches in his last game - after throwing 65 pitches the game before. Weren't there supposed to be pitch counts in the WBC?

This on top of K-Rod being asked to make not one, but two four-out saves, after making NONE all last season, according to the Post. In other words, the Angels, knowing that K-Rod was in his walk year and was likely to leave the team, protected his arm more than the WBC is doing.

The most disturbing thing, also from the Post article (and also highlighted in The Mets Police):

USA Today reported last week that its own study showed nearly four of every five pitchers in the 2006 WBC recorded a higher ERA that season than the previous year. Even more ominously: More than one in three WBC pitching veterans spent time on the disabled list in '06, including 14 who landed on it in April and May.

I'm not even going to get into David Wright getting kneed in the head and feeling dizzy afterwards. After all, Ryan Church suffered his first concussion last year during a Grapefruit League game.

At least, according to Kevin Kernan, the WBC news is not all bad for the Mets. Carlos Beltran is having a great tournament. And K-Rod threw only 20 pitches in his last save and said "I'm not going to put my future at risk at all... I feel tremendous. If I feel like I can, I will. If I cannot do it I will not do it."

I hope he's right. But if something happens to K-Rod, at least the Mets have a good backup closer this year. Oh, wait, J.J. Putz is in the WBC, too.

This tournament can't end soon enough.

What do you think of the WBC?