Strawberry Homers in 11th as Mets Beat Cardinals, 1-0

Darryl Strawberry waited 10 innings for John Tudor to get out of his face. Then, in the 11th inning, he hit another guy’s pitch off the right-field scoreboard, giving the New York Mets a 1-0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday night and making the Mets think they might win this thing after all.

Now only two games behind the Cardinals in the National League East race, the Mets come back tonight for Game 2 with Dwight Gooden doing the pitching. Joaquin Andujar goes for St. Louis, putting a 21-10 record up against Gooden’s 23-4.

With two games to go in this series and then home games against Montreal (for the Mets) and Chicago (for the Cardinals), the magic number for St. Louis is at 4 and holding. “Even if they sweep us,” Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog said, “that doesn’t mean they’re going to win it. We’re two in front, and some people are acting like we’re the ones in trouble.”

Tuesday’s truly splendid game was anybody’s for the taking until Strawberry’s monster-mash homer off relief pitcher Ken Dayley in the 11th. Even then, the suspense continued, because Mookie Wilson dropped a pop fly to center field in the bottom of the 11th for a two-base error.

Jesse Orosco preserved the game for starter Ron Darling, who pitched about as well as a pitcher can pitch without getting a decision. “I know I’m on the same team as Dwight Gooden,” Darling said, “but I’d like people to think of me as someone who can win games also.” This is the way a Yale graduate sometimes discusses his work.

After nine innings, Darling had given up no runs on four hits. After 10 innings, Tudor had given up no runs on six hits.

“I was just happy to get him out of there,” said Strawberry, who struck out twice, tapped to the mound and flied feebly to left against Tudor.

Anytime anybody did threaten to score in this game, it was usually because something freaky happened. The best Met threat--in the seventh--began with two fairly cheesy hits. The next-best Met threat--in the ninth--began with a Gary Carter squib that just did bloop next to the right-field line.

The Mets did not know how to count their blessings. They killed their first rally with a failed suicide squeeze in the seventh inning. And Carter, after opening the ninth with his double, never even got as far as third.

Except for that squeeze play, nobody got to third base in the first 10 innings.

With one out in the Met seventh, Ray Knight hit a weak single to right that his wife, golfer Nancy Lopez, would have called a shank. Rafael Santana followed with a hard grounder that grazed the pitcher’s left ankle and hopped along the AstroTurf toward the right-field bullpen. Tudor was OK, but he suddenly had runners on second and third.

At that point, Met Manager Davey Johnson sent in Howard Johnson to pinch-run for Knight. He also ordered Darling to put down a bunt. Johnson did. Darling didn’t.

The batter failed to get wood on the ball, and Hojo was caught in a rundown. All the suicide squeeze had done was make Darling feel like slashing his wrists.

“Dumb, dumb, dumb,” Darling said.

The scoreless war went on. In the bottom of the seventh, Terry Pendleton doubled with one out, and Mike Jorgensen walked. But Ozzie Smith’s comebacker to Darling became an inning-ending double play.

Tudor, going for his 21st win, was in trouble only one other time. That was when Carter’s wrong-way quail fell behind first base for a double leading off the Met ninth.

But Tudor was so tough that even after two teammates collided, dropping a pop foul, he struck out Strawberry and Johnson and got Santana on a routine grounder to short.

Herzog got 10 innings out of Tudor, then went for the win. He used three pinch-hitters in the 10th, and when the first of them, Cesar Cedeno, walked and stole second, the second pinch-hitter, Tito Landrum, was intentionally walked.

Up stepped Jack Clark, pulled rib-cage muscles and all, for his first at-bat since Sept. 21. Two out, slugger up, crowd of 46,026 on its feet.

Clark flied out to right.

That was the break New York was waiting for. Tudor was gone. At Shea Stadium, he also had gone 10 innings, outlasting Gooden, 1-0. Now it was the 11th. A lefty was on the mound, but it wasn’t Tudor. It was Dayley.

Dayley’s 1-and-1 pitch to Strawberry was next seen clanking off the right-field scoreboard, at least 420 feet away.

“One of the longest home runs I’ve ever seen,” Davey Johnson called it.

“Monster homer,” Howard Johnson called it.

“I probably hit some in high school that far,” came the Strawberry statement on the matter. “But I didn’t really watch it. It went far I guess, huh?”