Reynolds wasn’t supposed to catch up to Wagner’s fastball. But he did, and suddenly the ball was in the left-field bleachers and the game was tied at three. The boos came thundering down.

That Carlos Beltran won the game with a 13th-inning home run was irrelevant. By then, the stadium was practically empty—it was as if the Mets had already lost the game in the ninth.

The chance for a real positive spark, for the start of a turnaround, had been squandered. Randolph took a lot of heat for how he handled the ninth inning, and now it looks like he won’t last the week.

One can only wonder how different things might be if Wagner had blown one more fastball by Reynolds.

3. Soccer, Euro 2008: Italy 1, Romania 1 (6/13).

After two games of group play, World Cup champions Italy find themselves on the cusp of an early return home.

If not for keeper Gianluigi Buffon, they might already be booking their tickets.

Buffon’s incredible hand-to-foot save of an Adrian Mutu penalty kick kept the Azurri alive—had the Romanians won the game, it would have been mathematically impossible for Italy to advance to the knockout stage.

It would have been a devastating result for Italy, who sure deserved better than the 0-0 halftime score-line indicated. The first half was a tale of missed opportunity for Italian striker Luca Toni, who saw headers both miss the net high and wide and find the outstretched arms of Romanian keeper Bogdan Lobont, who had a fantastic game in his own right.

When Toni finally did put the ball in the back of the net just before the halftime whistle, it was for naught. A questionable, almost certainly incorrect offside ruling preserved Lobont’s clean sheet for the time being.

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