On the Mets beat

BY DAVID LENNON

ST. LOUIS – As the raindrops fell, and lightning flashed above Busch Stadium, the Mets hustled for the dugout last night in the third inning. Only Pedro Martinez never stepped off the rubber. He stared up at the sky, the baseball still in his glove, and refused to leave the mound.

“I looked up and thought, this must be a blessing, because it was 98 right before the game, sunny,” Martinez said. “And then all of a sudden, I get to the mound, it’s cloudy, it’s humid and the rain stopped the game. It must be a blessing. There’s something going on with me. There’s some adversity that I have to go through. I’m paying for something or I’m being tested.”

Martinez, who put the Mets in a 4-0 hole in the first inning, returned after the 47-minute rain delay with a vengeance, and retired seven of eight before Rick Ankiel crushed a tie-breaking home run in the fifth inning. That spoiled Martinez’s shot at redemption, and the Mets’ valiant comeback later was foiled as well.

With Duaner Sanchez still nursing a bruised left leg, Pedro Feliciano served up the tying two-run homer to pinch-hitter Chris Duncan in the seventh inning. And in the ninth, Troy Glaus’ second homer of the game was a walkoff shot against Carlos Muniz with two outs as the Mets fell to the Cardinals, 8-7. Glaus also drilled a three-run shot off Martinez in the first inning.

The Mets slipped to 41-43 and 4 ½ games in back of the Phillies. But when asked if this brutal loss might come back to haunt them in September, manager Jerry Manuel was unfazed.

“Nah, we’ll probably be five games up by then,” Manuel said, laughing. “We’ll be fine by then. If we keep competing like this on a nightly basis, we’ll be good.”

Muniz got Albert Pujols to pop up foul on his first pitch of the ninth and survived another scary moment when Rick Ankiel took him to the warning track – Carlos Beltran caught it with his back to the wall. But Muniz was not so fortunate with his 3-and-2 pitch to Glaus, who lifted a high fly ball to left that barely cleared Endy Chavez’s leaping attempt. It was reminiscent of
Chavez’s amazing grab of Scott Rolen’s deep shot in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS, only this time he didn’t come down with it.

“He got Rolen’s ball but he couldn’t get Glaus’ ball,” Manuel said. “Maybe we’ll go ahead and win the World Series now. That will turn it around for us.”

Chavez thought he had this one, too. But it just got over his glove, caromed off the Geico billboard and dropped between the wall and the bleachers.

“It was pretty close, but it didn’t hit my glove,” Chavez said. “For me, I did everything right. I just didn’t get to the point.”

The Mets erased deficits of 4-0 and 5-4 to take a 7-5 lead in the seventh inning. Carlos Delgado had an RBI single and Damion Easley added a sacrifice fly off Cards reliever Mark Mulder. When Russ Springer replaced him, Fernando Tatis followed with a pinch-hit RBI single with two outs.

But the Mets’ bullpen couldn’t close the deal. With Sanchez unavailable – he would have started the eighth inning -- Aaron Heilman made it through the seventh but was pulled after nailing Ryan Ludwick to open the eighth. With Duncan headed to the plate, Manuel called on Feliciano, and Duncan pulled his first pitch into the rightfield seats for a tying two-run homer.

While Martinez’s performance last night did not put to rest any lingering concerns, he was resilient enough to put the Mets back in a position to win right up to Ankiel’s 422-foot blast into the rightfield seats. Just looking at the numbers, it was another ugly night for Martinez, who allowed seven hits and five runs in five innings to push his ERA up to 7.39 in seven starts this season.

But most of that came in the first inning, when Martinez threw 32 pitches, surrendered five hits and served up a three-run homer to Glaus that put the Mets in a 4-0 hole. Over the next four innings, Martinez allowed only two hits – Ankiel’s homer and two-out single to Ryan Ludwick. In his last two starts, however, Martinez has been ripped for 13 hits and 11 runs in 10 2/3 innings. And it’s not something he’s been taking lightly.

“It’s been crossing my mind every time I go out there and look like I look,” Martinez said. “But I know someday it has to stop. And if I was to quit right now, I’d be a coward. You have a lot more chances to see me quit when everything is going smooth than right now. Right now is not the time that I’m going to quit. I’m going to try to find a way.

“I’m going to face whatever adversity is out there for me, and now I know how it feels to be on the other side of the coin. I’m just going to continue to battle and do what I can to help this team win a ballgame. If I fall short, I’m going to go home proudly. I’m not going to quit. That would probably be the easiest way right now and I’m not going to do that. There’s so many fans out there giving me support, I’m not going to let them down. If I’m going down or I’m going to quit, it’s going to be when things are going right.”