"The Mets watched their season come another bitter end last Sunday. Sunday, the salt was rubbed into the wound when the Phillies, the team the Mets let blow by them in the final weeks of the season, advanced to the NLCS with a 6-2 win over the Brewers, the team that edged the Mets for the wild card.

And if that weren't painful enough, Philadelphia did it by hammering Jeff Suppan, the same Jeff Suppan who pretty much kept the Mets out of the World Series in 2006 all by himself.

The Phils, who were swept in the first round last October by Colorado after edging the Mets for the NL East title, will have ace Cole Hamels fully rested when they play host to Joe Torre and the Dodgers in Game 1 on Thursday night at Citizens Bank Park.

"We feel good. Everything is lining up the way we want it to. We have a couple days off to get ready for L.A. and ready to roll," said Jimmy Rollins, who opened Sunday's Game 4 with a homer off Suppan. "We didn't even get out the first round last year, so it was almost like, three extra games and go home.

"It's not like we won the World Series last year and we were trying to prove that we're the team to beat. We're still trying to get there and know we still have a lot of work to do."

"We're celebrating right now, but as soon as we get on that plane, guaranteed, we're ready to go play ball against L.A."

Suppan certainly didn't appear as ready against the Phillies as he had been against the Mets in copping MVP honors in the 2006 NLCS for St. Louis.

Suppan, whose 8.44 ERA in September included a 6-1 loss in Philadelphia on Sept. 14, was tagged for Rollins' leadoff homer in the first and back-to-back blasts by Pat Burrell and Jayson Werth in the third for a crowd-silencing 5-0 Phillies lead."