Suppan, St. Louis roll

ST. LOUIS -- This is a town where it is perfectly acceptable for the women to affix phony swatches of red hair to their chins, for the men to wear ``99" on their backs, and for everyone to have ``Soup" on their lips.

This is also the town that, if the unexpected trends of the last two nights continue to be the norm, may find itself back in the World Series for the second time in three years.

A night after ``Say It Is So" Taguchi, the little Japanese outfielder who is No. 99 on your programs, shocked the Mets with a ninth-inning, game-winning home run in New York, the Cardinals returned home and seized control of the National League Championship Series with a 5-0 shutout of the Mets, giving them a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

The Mets' continued ability to survive without both Pedro Martínez and Orlando Hernandez will be put to its sternest test tonight when they send Oliver Perez, with his 3-13 record and 6.55 ERA, to the mound against the Cardinals, who in the last dozen innings have outscored the Mets, 10-0.

``We don't try to overanalyze or be too dramatic about anything," Mets manager Willie Randolph said. ``We played loose and easy all year long and we're not going to change now."

Some things had better change soon for the team with the best regular-season record in the National League, or soon Tommy Lasorda may be trying to coax them out of a tree to watch the rest of the postseason.

Jeff Suppan, staked to a 5-0 lead before a Cardinals batter was retired in the second inning, allowed the Mets just three hits in eight innings and struck out Paul Lo Duca to end the one inning, the third, in which the Mets advanced a runner as far as third, Jose Reyes having hit a two-out triple.

The ``Soup" calls from the crowd of 47,053 reached their crescendo when Suppan, who belonged to the same Red Sox draft class of '93 that spawned Trot Nixon, led off the second inning with a home run, only the second of his major league career. Oddly, both have come off Steve Trachsel, who faced only a dozen batters yesterday, with 10 reaching base, five on hits, five on walks, and five scoring.

``They say I never smile in the dugout," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said of Suppan's home run, which struck the top of the left-field wall and bounced over. ``I was smiling there."

Scott Spiezio, the guy with the funky tuft of hair on his chinny-chin-chin and a postseason résumé that makes him unique among anyone who has played in October, tripled home two runs in the first, his third consecutive extra-base hit against the Mets.

Spiezio, who subbed for Scott Rolen in Game 2 and hit a game-tying two-run triple in the seventh inning, which he followed with an RBI double in the ninth inning of the Cardinals' 9-6 win, began the night with 14 hits in 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position in the postseason. That .700 average is the highest in postseason history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Spiezio, who wears the same number (26) that his father, Ed, did when he was with the Cardinals, continues to offer an impressive encore to his scintillating performance in 2002, when he helped the Angels win a World Series.

Trachsel left one batter after Preston Wilson smoked a comebacker off his right thigh, the ball carrying out beyond shortstop. But the blow that left the biggest bruise was the home run by Suppan, who went deep on an 0-and-2 pitch.

What was the likelihood of Suppan leaving the yard? He was only the sixth pitcher in playoff history to hit a home run, the first since Kerry Wood of the Cubs in 2003, and he joined Bob Gibson (1967 and 1968 World Series) and Jesse Haines (1926 Series) as the only Cardinal pitchers with postseason homers.

He had one home run in 251 regular-season at-bats, and in the last five seasons, had just one hit in 27 at-bats with an 0 and 2 count.

``I don't know, I swung, it ran into my bat," Suppan said.

As soon as he hit it, he put his head down and began to run.

``I thought it was going to be caught on the track," he said, ``so I put my head down and ran. I kind of was looking for someone to let me know it was a home run. I still wasn't sure when I got to second."

By then, the serenading had begun.

The Cardinals defense also made beautiful music behind him. Right fielder Preston Wilson threw out Jose Valentin trying to stretch a single in the fifth. Third baseman Scott Rolen, back in the starting lineup, barehanded a ball on the run and threw out Lo Duca in the sixth, and an inning later backhanded David Wright's smash and threw him out. Shortstop David Eckstein converted another smash, this one off the bat of Endy Chavez, to turn a force in the eighth.

``Talk about Supp putting on a clinic, I thought our defense did, too, all over the park," La Russa said. ``But when your pitcher is moving a game along like that, that's the kind of response you get from your defense."