Some complied, others demurred. Old pal Billy Wagner called the whole thing "psychological bull," give or take a syllable.

"We're baseball players," said Wagner, the former Phillies/current Mets closer. "We go out there, play the game: see ball, hit ball, pitch. They do the same thing. They've got to be feeling good today - they won and we didn't. But it's not like, 'Jeez, the Phillies are coming to town, we're probably going to lose.' That's the furthest stuff from our mind.

"We're a damn good team and - you know what? - as ugly, at times, as it looked today, tomorrow it's going to change. We're going to go out there and play the way we play and do well. I think we're all tired of hearing, 'The Phils have our number.' The Phils don't have our number. We keep shooting ourself in the foot every time we get out there. We've got to quit worrying about who we're playing and the mental aspects and just play the game . . .

"We don't worry about facing Ryan Howard and Chase Utley - we could care less," Wagner said.

God bless Billy, a sports writer's refuge in a lonely world. Around him, his Mets teammates were pretty much doing the hushed-tones thing after the Phillies' 5-2 victory spoiled the final Opening Day at Shea Stadium.

The Mets, now 2-4, had been booed by a crowd of 56,350, the largest ever for an opener here. Just beyond the outfield fences, their new ballpark looms - brick facade, classic archways; you can see everything but the room where they're going to print the money. As for the old place, well, let's just say that it might be worth checking the papers of Alfred Nobel to see if he ever made a reference to anyone named Shea during the period when he was inventing dynamite - because the two seem totally made for each other at this point.

Anyway, yesterday made nine straight for the Phils against the Mets, just another fun fact to pile on top of the Mets' late-season collapse in 2007 and the Phillies' capture of the National League East. And, yes, the piling on has begun, as Wagner complained after watching a bit of postgame television analysis that he found to be, uh, lacking.

"[A television guy is] in there trying to say it's like an old girlfriend, baggage," he said. "You take her to a date, you dump her, you come back - he's trying to analyze our baseball team to a girlfriend. That's the stupid [stuff] you have to deal with.

"We're a good team and we're going to prove it," Wagner said.

Somebody brought up what Phils manager Charlie Manuel said about the Mets on Monday: "They'll talk, we'll hit. That's the only way I see it."

Billy?

"Tell the hillbilly that that's too late, they've already done that," Wagner said, laughing. "But he's right."

Hillbilly, Billy?

"One to another,'' said Wagner, a rural Virginia native like Manuel. "But you know what? That's right. You know what? When they come here, they bring it. They show up and they play great and that's what we have to do."

The Mets have lost three straight now, two to Atlanta and one to the Phils. If last year taught anyone anything, it is the meaninglessness of the early season as a predictor of what is to come. Still, there is a vague unease whenever a team with aspirations starts slowly, as the Mets have.

While reporters go to Wagner for emotion, they go to third baseman David Wright for substance. Yesterday, Wright was talking about trend-spotting early on, and trying to gauge things, and he said, bluntly, "We've failed that test so far.

"We continue to struggle offensively with runners in scoring position," he said. "We need our starters to go a little longer in the game . . . so that we save our bullpen a little bit. When those guys get overused and overexposed, they're going to get a little tired and leave some pitches over the plate.

"This is definitely not the start we wanted to get off to, but we have a big two games coming up. We need to rebound and regroup."

But nine straight losses to the Phils?

"That's one straight loss in 2008," Wright said. "That's all we're worried about - 2007 is done, over with. Unfortunately, we can't go change anything that happened last year. This is a new team, so we're 0-1 against the Phillies as far as I'm concerned."

Wright stayed at his locker for wave after wave of reporters. Each new group asked about nine straight. Each new group heard Wright talk about one straight. On and on it went, without a resolution - which is appropriate enough, seeing as how the Mets and Phillies still have 17 more games to go.

Now, though, Wagner would acknowledge this much:

"There's definitely confidence on their side,'' he said. "But there's no lack of confidence over here, saying that we can't get those guys out, or [that] our hitters aren't as good as their hitters. We're a good team. We know that we're a good team. We know that we're going to go out there and, a month from now, we'll be hearing a different story." *

Send e-mail to hofmanr@phillynews.com. For recent columns, go to

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