Mets Take Advantage Of More Dodger Ineptitude

It's almost unfortunate for the Mets that the Los Angeles Dodgers didn't show up in Queens ready to play baseball over the last two days. Barring calamity, Willie Randolph's men are going to move on to the National League Championship Series without experiencing a playoff foe capable of putting up a fight.

Playing baseball is difficult, and doing so in the playoffs still more so; no one can question the Dodgers' effort or resolve. Last night, though, as with the day before, the Dodgers just weren't playing high-level baseball. The Mets may be weaker than most 97-win teams, but they're hardly so weak that they can't deal with what's been on offer at Shea.

The story last night started with Dodgers pitcher Hong-Chih Kuo, who showed that the six innings of shutout ball he pitched against the Mets last month weren't a fluke. He was throwing nasty sliders after riding fastballs under the hands of the Mets hitters.The inside pitch is the Mets' generally accepted weakness, and the strategy worked for awhile, as Kuo gave up nothing more than a bloop single through the first two innings. It was that second inning, though, that gave the game away — the heart of the Mets order worked the rookie for 27 pitches, which is a lot to be throwing in one inning. It was clear then that the Dodgers were in trouble, and even clearer when, in the top of the fourth, David Wright and Cliff Floyd hammered line drives nearly over the fence. The Mets had adjusted to Kuo's strategy; he didn't adjust back.

While the blame always has to come back to the player, just as the credit does, it's hard to put too much of the blame on the rookie or on his equally inexperienced catcher, Russell Martin. There's a reason pitches are called from the bench by wizened old baseball men. Kuo pitched in the fifth just as he did in the first, and that's much of why he left with the bases loaded and one out. (Managing to walk leadoff man Jose Valentin, who hits lefties about as well as you do, also played its part.)

Starting a rookie and watching him get into trouble his second time through the lineup for essentially preventable reasons is one thing, but the Dodgers still managed, a day after Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew were tagged out at home plate at the same time, to play more fundamentally ineptly. In the sixth, which saw the Mets extend a tight 2–0 lead to a relatively comfortable 4–0 margin, the Dodger defense was simply comical. With men on first and second and none out, Valentin tapped a beautiful bunt down the third line, which apparently warped spacetime as it slowly rolled, causing pitcher Brett Tomko and third baseman Wilson Betemit to simply stare at it, slackjawed. When Julio Franco, who's been playing professional baseball longer than I've been alive, beat out the back end of a routine double play, it couldn't have been more clear that the Dodgers just weren't playing winning baseball.

So what of the Mets? It's hard to say. A win is only as impressive as the competition, and the Dodgers weren't much last night.

Tom Glavine pitched tremendously well, and relentlessly — with that narrow two-run lead, a man on third in the fifth, and two out, he walked Rafael Furcal on a full count with a ball about a foot off the plate, and it said everything about him. Only a ruthlessly confident pitcher would have dared to bring the lead run to the plate in those circumstances. It was about as close as Glavine will ever come to a rhetorical flourish.

Jose Reyes, with his two key runs batted in — one on a routine groundout in the second, the other on a two-out rifle shot up the middle in the sixth that took the game from close to not so close — was exceptionally impressive as well. Anyone who still has the idea that Reyes is anything but a fastidious and disciplined hitter should cue up the replays of those RBI and watch the short, natural arc of his swing to see the sight of a player perfectly aware of how he will be pitched and of how he can use that to his advantage to bring the runs home. Just as the Mets had Delgado on Wednesday, last night they had Reyes; in games to come there will be someone else. (Hard as he's hit the ball, you have to think Cliff Floyd is going to do something frightening soon.)

The Mets look like a machine right now. Even if it's a result of Dodger ineptitude, they're looking unbeatable, every bit as aggressive and confident as the Yankees. St. Louis awaits.