- Curtis Martin gave the Jets notice that he won't be playing this year. On the physically unable to perform (PUP) list since the start of the season, Martin and the Jets had until Tuesday to determine if he would be coming off that list. The all-time leading rusher for the Jets now moves to the reserve PUP list and his future playing prospects look doubtful. While he didn't explicitly say that he was going to retire, Martin is without some cartilage in his right knee, resulting in a bone-on-bone condition. Sounds delightful! If he retires, Martin would leave as number 4 on the NFL's all-time leading rushers list behind Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton and Barry Sanders with 14,101 yards. Gothamist once heard a story that Martin dropped a deuce in a urinal at his old high school in Pittsburgh (Taylor Allderdice). Does that detract from his accomplishments? Of course not. If anything, it makes them even better.
Tom Glavine twirled six shutout innings and the Mets' offense patiently worked over the Dodgers' pitchers in a 4-1 victory that gave them a 2-0 lead in the three-of-five National League Division Series. The Dodgers have to think they lost this series when they had two players tagged out at home plate in the second inning of Game 1. If they didn't, they could have lost it with offensive impotence against Glavine, who showed that the Mets made the right move in holding him back until Game 2 before starting him.
After a cruise-control regular season, the Mets have hit a speed bump before the playoffs start. The health of their pitching staff has downgraded from bad to worse. After they learned Pedro Martinez would miss the postseason -- and half of next season -- with a torn muscle in his calf and a torn rotator cuff, the Mets got more bad news Tuesday when Orlando Hernandez pulled his calf during a workout. The Mets now hand the game 1 ball over to 25 year-old John Maine, who has played in only 27 Major League games and has no playoff starts. Maine was 6-5 with a 3.60 ERA in his 16 starts this season. Hernandez, in comparison, is 9-2 with a 2.64 ERA in his 14 postseason starts.
-Yankees 3 Orioles 2: On a day when New York played without a lot of regulars they managed to eek out a win, thanks to Chien-Ming Wang. Wang went 7 1/3 innings to win his 17th game, giving up only one run. Mike Myers and Scott Proctor combined to finish the eighth and Kyle Farnsworth earned the save despite allowing a home run to Kevin Millar.
Update: WFAN is reporting that the trade between the Mets and the Padres for Linebrink fell through.
