Look, I could, and with all the justice of the world behind me, be sadistic and satirical and dedicate this page to dishing out blisteringly witty Yankees commentary. I could, but in the same way the Yankees’ arrogance poetically destines them for failure, all that negative energy will only result in ill will for me.

So if you haven’t heard already, the Mets just won the National League. Oh, pardon me, that was the line for the Oct. 24 article. This week was just their sweep of the Dodgers to win the NLDS. The Mets, despite the injuries to their pitching staff and Cliff Floyd, are playing like a team hungry to win, primarily because not even half the starting lineup had seen a playoff game prior to this year. We have to credit Willie Randolph (Ph.D., MIT 1984) with uncanny game management for these victories.

The Mets’ starting pitching gave up three runs through 15 innings in the series, proving sufficient for the hamstrung bullpen. I don’t like to think about how this team would look if Duaner Sanchez’s arm wasn’t currently comprised principally of plastic at the moment. Paul LoDuca was good for a .455 average, Floyd hit .444 through the series and Carlos Delgado’s .439 included timely hits to round out a scoring machine that put up 19 runs through three games.

Talk about game management. The interchangeable Endy Chavez and Shawn Green hit for a collective .350. John Maine inspired some confidence and the Mets have won seven straight going back to the regular season, and now 100 for the season.

In the other National League series, the Cardinals beat the Padres 3-1, just as they should have. Once you get past Jake Peavy and Chris Young, the Padres’ pitching is something to scoff at. Chris Carpenter has looked good all season and continued to do so in the playoffs.

Is this the situation we would rather see? I just spoke about the Padres’ having some stars on their pitching staff, but no depth. This is a problem markedly worse on the Cardinals. The aforementioned Chris Carpenter is the extent of the notability of the Cardinals’ pitching prowess. Braden Looper is the heart of the middle relief for the Cardinals. Braden Looper, as any Mets fan knows, is terrible. Merely writing his name in Word causes my blood to boil. He blew more games as a Mets reliever than A-Rod’s lack of clutch hitting did for the Yanks (and that’s a lot of games).

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, if Braden Looper had a conventional e-mail at Binghamton it might be blooper1@binghamton.edu. At any rate, although either team would be beatable, the Cardinals’ relievers — mostly rookies — are utterly hittable, and once you intentionally walk Pujols, there is little to fear from their lineup, as Jim Edmonds has grown colder than the house I live in in January because we collectively can’t afford to turn on the heat.

I loathe relying on platitudes and empty rhetoric about “intangibles” to make playoff predictions, but this Mets team has heart. They seem like a team of destiny, and I have my fingers crossed.