Mets shoved to brink

ST. LOUIS -- It's one thing to be evicted from your hotel rooms, the predicament the Mets were faced with because of Monday night's rainout. Charlie Samuels, the Mets' equipment man and travel director, just pulled out his rooming list and divvied up the bodies, some staying put, others moving to another location.

But to be bounced from the National League playoffs after practically lapping the field during the regular season?

That's a scenario none of the Mets want to face, but that was the uncomfortable reality they took home with them last night after falling, 4-2, to the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 5 of the National Championship Series.

``I've been in this position many, many times," said Mets manager Willie Randolph, who as former Yankees captain and Joe Torre's coach has lived through countless Octobers. ``You've got to win a couple of ballgames. We know where we are."

The Cardinals last night solved the Mets' best pitcher, Tom Glavine, who finally cracked after carrying the club on his 40-year-old left shoulder throughout October.

Now the Cardinals have their ace, Chris Carpenter, and Jeff Suppan, who has a Game 7 win over Roger Clemens on his résumé, lined up to face a Mets rookie, John Maine, and . . . and . . . and . . . a prospective savior to be named later from a cast of unreliables headed at the moment by Darren Oliver, who washed out with the Red Sox (and five other teams, including Texas twice) and would be making his first start of the season.

The Cardinals' finishing touches were administered by Adam Wainwright, the Cardinals' version of Jonathan Papelbon.

A 6-foot-7-inch rookie who went to the same Georgia prep school as golfer Davis Love III and played basketball in middle school against future NBA top pick Kwame Brown, Wainwright whiffed 37-year-old Jose Valentin with the tying runs in scoring position to end the eighth, then whiffed the Mets' young sensation, Jose Reyes, to end the game.

Wainwright inherited the closer's job when Jason Isringhausen's arthritic hip forced him to undergo surgery last month.

Now the 25-year-old righthander is on the verge of closing out the Mets and heading to the World Series.

``That's the kind of thing you envision when you are 8 years old in your backyard," he said. ``I know when it comes down to the end of the game, they are going to be calling on me.

``I know the team needed it. . . . I owed it to them. ``I can't do bad, not for this town, not for this team."

The Cardinals, who got six better innings from Jeff Weaver than they had a right to expect, are a win away from a reprise of that 1968 World Series Classic, Tigers-Cards, when a future doughnut maker named Mickey Lolich won three games for the Tigers, who prevailed in seven games over the Cardinals and Bob Gibson.

Albert Pujols, who caused a fuss when he declared Glavine ``not that good" after the Cardinals were shut out by Glavine for seven innings in Game 1, delivered his first big hit of the series, a line-drive home run into the left-field seats in the fourth that catalyzed the Cardinals after the Mets had struck first on Valentin's two-run double in the top of the fourth.

``Everybody likes to see Albert go deep. The fans. We do," said Josh Kinney, the middle of three Cardinal s relievers to blank the Mets over the last three innings. ``He got us started tonight. It was so much fun to watch."

The Cardinals tied the score when Scott Rolen, who has been feuding with manager Tony La Russa over when he should play, drew a two-out, four-pitch walk. Jim Edmonds followed with a ground single to right and Ronnie Belliard punched a pitch well out of the zone for another ground-ball single to score Rolen.

Yadier Molina went to a full count against Glavine before drawing yet another pass, and by the time Glavine induced Weaver to ground into an inning-ending force play, he had thrown 36 pitches in the inning.

The go-ahead run was the invention of shortstop David Eckstein, the little engine that could. Eckstein, who set the tone for the Cardinals' night with diving stops on each of the Mets' first two batters, showed bunt, then pulled back and lifted a flare to left, just out of the reach of Mets shortstop Jose Reyes.

Preston ( Stepson of Mookie) Wilson gave himself a Busch moment to remember when he lined a double to right-center that carried to the wall, Eckstein steaming around the bases to score. Glavine's final act of the night was to issue an intentional walk to Pujols, Willie Randolph electing to summon submariner Chad Bradford from the bullpen.

``We all had visions of being shut out again by Mr. Glavine," La Russa said. ``He was working us over. Albert got enough of it, and we got something going."

The move to Bradford appeared to backfire when Juan Encarnacion, after fouling off two bunt attempts, stuck his bat out and lined a pitch a foot outside into right field, loading the bases.

But Bradford struck out Rolen before Randolph went to the bullpen again, this time for lefthander Pedro Feliciano, who induced Edmonds to tap to first baseman Carlos Delgado, who threw home for a force at the plate, then retired Belliard on a liner to left.

Weaver, in a bid for redemption not in Kenny Rogers's league but cut from the same cloth -- this was a guy who was given away by the Angels in July to make room for his little brother, Jered -- departed after the sixth, having held the Mets to six hits and two walks.

``Look, I'm just fortunate to be in this situation," said Weaver, who had his brother as a dinner guest Monday. ``I could very easily be sitting at home.

``To get an opportunity to pitch and go back to the way you know you can throw that can erase anything that happened before.

``Anaheim seems a few years away."

In a move sure to blow the circuitry in most computers, La Russa sent up Chris Duncan, a lefthanded hitter and son of his longtime pitching coach, Dave Duncan, to hit for Weaver to start the bottom of the inning. Duncan hit just .170 (8 for 47) against lefties, and had just two plate appearances against Feliciano, walking once and striking out once.

So what does he do here? He lines a full-count delivery from Feliciano into the right-field seats, giving the Mets a two-run cushion.

``Once I got him to 3-and-2, close game like that, I knew he couldn't walk me, so I just tried to stay aggressive and he left a breaking ball up," Duncan said.

The Cardinals' bullpen then kept the Mets at bay. Josh Kinney, the deer hunter and alumnus of the River City Cats of the Frontier League, struck out three of the first four batters he faced, including Carlos Beltran on a called third strike for the first out of the eighth.

Delgado then beat out an infield hit against the overshifted infield, and David Wright lined a double into the left-field corner.

But lefthander Randy Flores entered to retire Shawn Green on a shallow fly ball to center, then Wainwright entered and caught Valentin looking at a backdoor breaking ball to end the inning.

Gordon Edes can be reached at edes@globe.com.