KANSAS CITY — Ballot stuffing? Glory robbing?
They all should be water under the bridge for the Mets and their fans now. Shoot, more than that, the Mets can view what went down as a sign from the baseball gods.
If the Mets can represent the National League in the 2012 World Series — who ever thought that could be written without sarcasm? — they can thank the fine people of San Francisco and the coarse Tony La Russa for getting them the home-field advantage. They can salute their NL New York predecessors, the Giants.
Of course, the Mets might have to get through the Giants to reach the Fall Classic.
Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval, the third baseman voted in as the NL’s starting third baseman over the more deserving David Wright, and Matt Cain, the pitcher La Russa selected to start over the more deserving R.A. Dickey, led a contingent of Giants that sparked the NL to an 8-0 shellacking of the American League in last night’s All-Star Game at Kauffman Stadium.
“I’m glad we won the game,” Wright said. “So that’s the bottom line.”
In throwing a pair of scoreless innings, Cain became the winning pitcher by virtue of the support of his NL teammates, none more prominent than his actual teammates from San Francisco. The roly-poly Sandoval ripped a three-run triple in the first inning, highlighting a five-run kickoff against Detroit starter Justin Verlander. Catcher Buster Posey walked to load the bases for Sandoval.
And former Yankee Melky Cabrera continued his remarkable free-agency campaign, slicing a one-out single in the first to start the rally and adding a two-run homer in the fourth inning to boost the visitors’ lead to 8-0. For his efforts, Cabrera earned the game’s Most Valuable Player honors.
Not bad, in all, for a bunch of guys propped up by their city and their All-Star manager.
“We’ve got a lot of good players on our team,” Dickey said, after throwing a scoreless sixth inning. “It seems like everybody came out swinging the bat.”
La Russa, now retired, didn’t select Dickey in part because he said he wanted to honor Cain for an excellent career. Cain is a mighty fine pitcher, yet with his selection, La Russa took away what could have been a spectacular storyline in a Dickey start.
So with that written, at least Cain performed his job admirably. While the often dominant Verlander looked lost against the NL, Cain needed to face just seven batters to pick up his six outs.
We kind of saw the Cain thing coming, as La Russa had been hinting for a while Dickey might not get the start. The Sandoval-Wright saga, however, with Sandoval out-polling Wright in the fan voting, caught most of us by surprise. Including Mets general manager Sandy Alderson.
The sardonic Alderson wrote on his Twitter account last week: “Wright vs. Sandoval: A city of 8 million was outvoted by a city of 800,000.”
So again, at least Sandoval justified the love with his performance. You wouldn’t have bet on someone of his dimensions legging out a three-bagger, but he placed his hit well enough, in the right-field corner, to pull it off.
Add in the contributions of Cabrera, who is no longer anything approaching roly-poly, and you had yourself a Giants Festival in the Midwest.
It’s a weird by-product of the All-Star Game’s now 10-year-old format that players and teams work themselves into a lather over who gets which honor — until first pitch, at which point you put such complaints aside and work together.
Mets manager Terry Collins, here as a coach, said Monday he wanted Dickey to not sweat La Russa’s snub and focus on preparing for October. Fittingly, because of La Russa’s decision, the Mets now have a better chance of carrying their stunning first half all the way into the Canyon of Heroes.
kdavidoff@nypost.com