It was a fairly quiet baseball Sunday in New York.
In deference to the fact that everyone in the area spent the day building arks in response to rain that seemed endless, the Yankees cancelled their game with the Rays and took off for the drier climate of Kansas City.
The Mets did play, but their sweep at the hands of the Diamondbacks offered no respite from the rain.
It offered only a confirmation that the meaningful part of this Mets season is over and raised the possibilty that the final weeks of the campaign will erode all the goodwill built up to this point.
The losses were ugly outings that seemed like a redux of the early April doldrums that led to Fred Wilpon's infamous interview and other indignities.
We could dwell on Ryota Igarashi's Titanic impersonation on the mound Sunday or on the fact that Jose Reyes isn't expected back from injury when eligible to come off the disabled list on Monday, but neither of those things are surprising enough to qualify as revelations.
So we'll focus on the other things we learned about New York baseball over this wet weekend.
1. Jorge Posada has a little something left in the tank. Every now and then there are baseball moments that seem like they come from Hollywood instead of real life and Saturday's Yankee win was one of those moments.
Posada came up with the bases loaded in each of his first two at-bats against the Rays and drove in six runs with a single and a grand slam. That led to a curtain call in front of an adoring Stadium crowd and, perhaps, the last glorious afternoon for Posada in a Yankee uniform.
If it was, let's be thankful that we got to see a great player have one more day in the sun (remember the sun?). If it wasn't, that's all the better although we're skeptical about the chances of a full-fledged Posada resurgence this year or any other.
Sports
2. Posada's got a sense of humor, too. After hearing Derek Jeter wonder about where he would put the huge sculpture the team gave him during a Saturday ceremony in honor of his 3,000th hit, Posada pointed out that Jeter owns a Rhode Island-sized house in Tampa in a rare puncturing of Jeter's attempt to play Everyman despite the myriad obvious reasons why he is a bad choice for the role.
3. Are we sure that Phil Hughes didn't oversharpen the knives at Freddy Garcia's house? Garcia would have missed his scheduled start Sunday with a cut on his right index finger, raising the possibility of another start for Hughes, who otherwise seems ticketed for the bullpen as the Yankees try to reduce the number of starters in their rotation to four plus whatever A.J. Burnett is these days.
4. Speaking of Burnett, Brian Cashman slammed those he claims refuse to view Burnett objectively and choose "B.S." emotional responses to criticize a player who he says has been a very solid contributor to the team. Thanks to Mike Mazzeo of ESPNNewYork.com, there's plenty of objective evidence to emphatically declare that Cashman is out of his mind.
5. Garcia isn't the only local starter dealing with an injury these days. Mike Pelfrey had to leave his start on Saturday after taking a batted ball off the elbow, although Terry Collins would probably have chosen a different body part after Pelfrey shared some thoughts with the media before the game.
Pelfrey told the Post that it was unrealistic for anyone to think the Mets would make the playoffs this season, a notion that seems about as controversial as saying that it is unrealistic to believe that Keanu Reeves will ever be hailed as the greatest actor of his generation. It still created a bit of an uproar, including a meeting with Collins, and the writing appears to be on the wall for the end of Pelfrey's frustrating tenure with the team.
6. Jason Bay isn't quite Posada when it comes to the desire to see a happy ending, but he's also doing his best to rewrite the well-worn narrative of his season. Bay is hitting .311 with three homers this month, by far his best production of 2011 which will either make you hopeful for the future or even angrier about the past.
7. Chris Capuano passed through waivers unclaimed, which means the Mets could trade him if they so desire. They should (and anyone else who gets a nibble), if only to try for something positive in the wake of the implosion of their season once the calender flipped to August.
8. R.A. Dickey has jumped aboard the Twitter bandwagon. There hasn't been much good from Dickey yet, but hopes are high given how entertaining he's been in interviews over the last two seasons.
9. Scott Proctor is back in the Yankees organization. In related news, Joe Torre will call Proctor to MLB offices to pitch every day this week.
10. The A-Rod return remains on schedule after he played third base in Tampa this weekend. He'll head to Scranton for more rehab work with designs on rejoining the Yankees in Minnesota this week.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
