The junior varsity left the scene after taking two games from the Mets, who now bid adieu to the lowly Expos and brace for the arrival of the Yankees and all the madness, intensity and intrigue that has fueled this interleague Subway Series.
As a prelude to what should be a wild weekend at Shea Stadium, the Mets yesterday experienced a rare bullpen meltdown and lost 4-3 to a rag-tag Montreal outfit that had no right to win the final two games of a series from a playoff contender. But that’s what the Expos did, leaving the Mets frustrated and eager to tangle on their own turf with baseball’s best team.
“Maybe this is just what the doctor ordered for us,” Mike Piazza said. “We need to kind of turn ourselves around, and maybe this shot of adrenaline will be good. As players, you definitely try to keep this in perspective, but there’s no question you’re going to be pumped.”
Deflated is a more accurate description of how the Mets limped away from their four-game series with the Expos, wasting a decent starting performance from Masato Yoshii with a flat showing lowlighted by a failure to hold a 3-1 lead, mustering only six hits off four Expos pitchers.
“If you could have it your way you’d like to have some momentum going into this series,” John Olerud said.
It starts tonight, with the Mets juggling their rotation to have Al Leiter on the mound in the opener to face Roger Clemens. In three interleague series against the Yankees the last three seasons, the Mets have dropped two of three games each time.
“I think we’d like to win the series but I don’t think we have to exorcise any demons this weekend,” GM Steve Phillips said.
Thoughts of the Yankees bring back sour memories for the Mets. When the two teams met at Yankee Stadium in early June three of Valentine’s coaches were fired after the Mets had lost their eighth straight game. The chaos has subsided this time around but the Mets understand it can swirl around them once again if they head into next week’s All-Star break by going into the tank against the Yankees.
“It seems the problem is if you don’t play well in this series you’re almost an outcast in this city,” Piazza said. “It seems like the city is just focused on this event. The time we didn’t play well we felt like total losers. It’s funny as hell.”
That losing feeling hit the Mets again yesterday. Yoshii was given a 3-1 lead on Piazza’s solo home run in the fifth, but after giving up an opposite-field homer to Vladimir Guerrero – on an 0-2 pitch up near Guerrero’s shoulders – Yoshii exited after six innings with a 3-2 lead. The Mets’ heralded bullpen, now without closer John Franco for the near future, did not deliver.
Turk Wendell allowed the Expos to pull even on Orlando Cabrera’s home run in the seventh.
Dennis Cook, who had not given up a run in his last 11 appearances, allowed the Expos to pull ahead in the eighth. It came on Wilton Guerrero’s triple and a shallow sacrifice fly by Shane Andrews that forced center fielder Brian McRae to battle the wind and sun before uncorking a weak throw that had no chance to beat the speedy Guerrero.
“We’re humans, we’re going to go through bad streaks,” Cook said of the bullpen, “but I wouldn’t consider this a bad streak.”
The final insult came in the ninth after Rickey Henderson drew a leadoff walk as a pinch hitter. With a 1-0 count to Luis Lopez, Valentine had Henderson running against reliever Ugueth Urbina, who has a slow delivery to the plate. The throw to second base from catcher Chris Widger was perfect, though, and Henderson was out on a close play.
“I had a little too much confidence in Rickey’s ability to swipe that thing,” Valentine said.
And now it’s on to the Yankees.