National League Playoffs Notebook : Astros Have Decided to Go With Scott--Twice

The Houston Astros made the announcement before Saturday’s crushing 6-5 loss to the Mets: Mike Scott, on three days’ rest, will pitch Game 4 tonight.

“Mike Scott will be the pitcher of record in Game 4, and if there’s a seventh game, he’ll pitch that, too,” Houston Manager Hal Lanier confirmed during Saturday’s postgame media conference.

When he worked with three days’ rest this season instead of his customary four, Scott was 5-3 with a 2.40 earned-run average. He struck out 101 batters in 90 innings. His last start with three days’ rest came Aug. 2, when he beat the San Diego Padres, 5-4.

Scott has not allowed more than three earned runs in 30 of his last 31 starts. Scott beat the Mets, 1-0, in Game 1, allowing five hits and striking out 14.

Lanier took offense at what he considered second-guessing when asked why he removed reliever Charlie Kerfeld, who had worked a perfect eighth inning, to bring in Dave Smith, who surrendered the game-winning home run to Len Dykstra.

“It is easy for you (media) to sit out there and say I should have left Kerfeld in, but there is no reason not to bring in your No. 1 man,” Lanier said. “If they’d beaten our No. 2 man, you would really have had something to write about.”

Lanier has used Kerfeld as a setup man and Smith as his closer all season.

“The man (Smith) saved 33 games, and I thought he made a good pitch,” Met first baseman Keith Hernandez said.

“Their (the Astros’) initial reaction must be, ‘Who would have thought Lenny Dykstra would hit a game-winning home run?’ They live and die with that man (Smith). I’d run him out there tomorrow. He’s a great pitcher.”

Ninth-inning controversy: Lanier argued in vain that Wally Backman of the Mets veered out of the basepath to avoid the tag of first baseman Glenn Davis on Backman’s leadoff bunt in the ninth.

Backman left the 45-foot runners’ box on the first-base line and took at least a couple of steps on the grass, but first base umpire Dutch Rennert said Backman did not exceed the three-foot leeway the rule book allows for baserunners.

“It was really hard for me to tell; I can’t really tell where I’m running,” Backman said. “I know I didn’t try to avoid Davis.

“The reason I dove was that in a similar play this season, the first baseman dove from behind me and clipped me on the heel. Now, all my bunts are just like that. I dive, throw my body outside and get my hand to the bag.”

Met Manager Davey Johnson, on the same play: “Yes, I would have (argued), but it wasn’t flagrant, it was on the borderline. We’ve gone over close to our dugout on that play.”

Dykstra, talking about growing up in Garden Grove, an Orange County suburb: “I grew up 10 minutes from Anaheim Stadium. Me and my friend used to ride our bikes there and sneak in. I knew all the places to sneak in.

“I wrote Rod Carew a letter, and never heard anything. One day, we got a phone call, and my mother said some guy wanted to talk to me.

“The guy said, ‘Lenny, this is Rod Carew,’ and he started reading my letter to me. Here I was, a teen-age punk in high school.”

Add Dykstra: His nickname, Nails, derives from his friendship with Mark Baker, a bowler on the professional tour. When he watched Baker play, Dykstra said, he would yell, “Nail ‘em,” hence the nickname.

The “tough as nails” cliche also applies. Asked by one reporter just how tough he was, Dykstra cracked: “Want to go into the back room and find out?”