The Mets' zero-sum games

It hasn't happened in the Majors in six years and hasn't been done by the Mets since September 1969, but it was completed tonight: A three-game shutout sweep. Amazing.

In some ways, I was as nervous heading to the ninth as I get during no-hit bids going into the final inning (or, if it's a no-hit bid by a Met, into the seventh or eighth). This wouldn't just be a sweep, but a resounding one, shutting out one of the best offenses in baseball (they are at home, at least) for three straight games. This series could turn out to be not just a statement (it already is) but a springboard. I'm still not sure exactly what this team has -- if it has enough to reach the playoffs -- but if it can play with this kind of confidence, energy, attitude and pitching (especially the pitching), it can make the NL East race very interesting (and hopefully not ultimately heartbreaking).

I think these Mets are starting to play to their ballpark. If Jose Reyes can get on base and use his speed, if Luis Castillo can make contact to move runners over (though, as Keith Hernandez has said on air, I'd like to see more hit-and-run calls than straight sacrifice bunts), if Jason Bay, Ike Davis and David Wright can drive them in with doubles (and a few home runs), and if the bottom of the order can provide opportunistic base hits, they can win a lot of games without a 30-homer hitter.

But none of it will matter if they can't keep it up on the road. Now they're off to Milwaukee for three and San Diego for three, the first road trip since the 2-6 swing through Miami, Atlanta and Washington that had Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya at Turner Field and the buzzards circling Jerry Manuel's office. In the past two seasons, the Mets are 5-9 in those cities, and three of those wins came in a sweep at Miller Park in '08. Otherwise, 1-2 at Miller and 1-3 and 0-4 at Petco.

Let's see where this trip takes them. A 4-2 swing has to be the benchmark for this feel-good feeling to last. Anything less, and it's back to wondering.

Catching up on Brodeur

After shutting out the Panthers on Jan. 20, Martin Brodeur went more than two months without a whitewash, and then -- BAM! -- two in a row, just as he's setting himself up for the playoffs. He blanked the Hurricanes and Thrashers in consecutive games at the beginning of April. Of course, those came heading into the first week of the baseball season, so my attention was elsewhere. I noted them, but didn't take any time to comment on them.

And so, as I have been marking all along this year, Brodeur has now tied Walter Johnson for the career lead in shutouts, with 110, in a category I'm making up: the most shutouts by a man charged with keeping the other team from scoring in a team sport.

Here's hoping that bodes well as the Devils begin the march to their fourth Stanley Cup tonight...

Another blanking for Brodeur

Career shutout No. 108 for Martin Brodeur tonight in a 2-0 win over the Panthers. He leads the NHL with seven this season, the most he's had since he last led the league, with 12 in 2006-07.

Brodeur's played 46 games this season, so he's averaging a shutout every seven games (the math comes out to 6.6). The Devils have 13 games before the break for the Winter Olympics, so it's not likely Brodeur will tie Walter Johnson's career shutout mark of 110 before then, especially since he'll likely sit out a game or two.

Another shutout -- and then some

Martin Brodeur stopped 51 shots as the Devils beat the Rangers, 1-0, tonight. But it wasn't just a 1-0 win, it was a 1-0 shootout win, coming after 65 minutes of scoreless hockey at Madison Square Garden. Not only did Marty stonewall the Blueshirts for three periods and overtime, he denied them on four shots in the shootout. Well, three shots after the first shooter missed the net.

The shutout is Brodeur's 107th, moving him within three of Walter Johnson's baseball record. The Devils head west for their next game, Thursday at Phoenix. The Coyotes have scored a Pacific Division-low 120 goals this season, the same number the Rangers have netted.

The Marty Train keeps rolling

Martin Brodeur shut out the Dallas Stars tonight, 4-0, for the 106th whitewash of his career. He now stands four behind Walter Johnson's pitching record for the most by a North American team sport athlete.

Though it's not the same (though what is in this made-up "chase"?), if we were to count postseason stats, too, Johnson has 111 shutouts with one blanking in his six World Series games. Brodeur has 23 in 176 postseason games. But of course, Johnson played in an era when one out of eight teams in the American League made the World Series, the only postseason series at the time. And Big Train didn't get there until 1924 and '25, when he was 36 and 37. Brodeur plays in an era in which eight out of 15 teams in each conference can qualify for the postseason, so his chances of postseason play are much greater.

But going back to regular-season games, Johnson pitched shutouts in 110 of his 802 games, or 13.7 percent. Brodeur's 106 have come in 1,038 games, a still-respectable 10.2 percent. Though as with many baseball arguments comparing players from Big Train's Deadball Era and today's supplement- and ballpark-enhanced Power Era, Johnson was a pitcher in a time that favored them over the hitters. Brodeur, conversely, is a goalie in an era that favors scoring. Terry Sawchuck, whose record Brodeur broke, compiled his 103 shutouts in 971 games, giving him a slightly better mark, 10.6 percent, than Brodeur's.

Martin Brodeur and a baseball record (Huh?)

I'm not the biggest hockey fan, but I do enjoy the sport -- mostly live or during the playoffs, because really, why play 81 games when the postseason is about half that (give or take)? But I have had my moments of devotion to the sport, beginning in 1995, when the New Jersey Devils won the first major sports championship in the state's history. That was a lot of fun to watch, except for the part when they had to have the "parade" around the parking lot of the Meadowlands. Now, at least with the new -- and very nice, I must say -- arena, they can have the parade in an actual city. The city's Newark, but still. They can parade from the NJ Performing Arts Center, past the Bears' minor league baseball stadium and over to the Pru for the rally. That'll be nice enough.

In fact, the Devils' three Stanley Cups have come in interestingly regular intervals, at least in terms of my life. The first, in '95, came when I was in college. The second, in 2000, was during my first job, at the Asbury Park Press. I remember sitting on the floor of the newsroom in front of the big TV in the sports department. It was a Saturday night, we'd already put the section to bed and the game was in overtime in Dallas. Basically, we were waiting around for the game to end to put out a late edition -- either saying they were going to Game 7, or that the Devils had won the Cup. When Jason Arnott scored in OT, my arms shot up as I yelled "CUP!" and we got back to work.

And their last title, in 2003, came while I was working for a magazine. I watched at home, then went to Modell's down the street the next morning to buy a championship T-shirt to wear to work the next day.

So the Devils won once while I was in college (a four-year stretch), once while I worked at the newspaper (I was there for four years) and once while I worked at the magazine (I was there 3 1/2 years). March will mark four years at my current job, and though the Stanley Cup Finals aren't until May/June, they'd pretty much hit the mark if they can pull it off. Four Cups in 15 years -- or an average of one not quite every four years -- would be quite impressive.

Anyway, there's a reason I'm writing about hockey on my otherwise erstwhile baseball blog -- Martin Brodeur's NHL-record-setting 104th shutout last night. Marty's excellence and longevity has made him into one of the greatest goalies -- or THE greatest goalie -- in hockey history. I know there's an argument that he's had it easier than others because of the Devils' style of play, that their trapping zone defense puts less pressure on the goalie, but I'm not enough of a student of the game to be able to argue that point one way or the other. And I realize that goalie equipment and training today is much more advanced than it used to be, but that also rules changes in recent years have been to goalies' detriment. Again, that's about the extent of my knowledge of the situation. But that's nothing different than what we have in baseball when we try to compare eras or determine the greatest hitter (Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Pujols?), pitcher (Big Train, Koufax, Seaver, Ryan, Maddux, Clemens?) or team ('06 Cubs, '27 Yankees, '75 Reds, '98 Yankees?).

But now, Brodeur -- and here I'm getting to the baseball tie-in (finally) -- has a chance for the all-time North American sports shutout record. Walter Johnson threw 110 in his Hall of Fame career, and Brodeur is now just six away from that mark. I suppose if we really wanted to pin down the continent's career shutout mark in all sports where individual players are credited with the statistic, we should dig up the record for professional soccer circuits like the North American Soccer League and others like it to see if any of those goalkeepers had more than 110 clean sheets (the Major League Soccer record, as of this writing, is 84). Though the nature of the game makes shutouts much more frequent in soccer than in baseball or hockey, I'm willing to amend this post should someone point me to those stats, but I haven't been able to find them just yet.

So congratulations on your hockey record, Marty. Only seven more to go to set a new mark for the continent.