Astros Get Even, 3-1 : Scott Shuts Down Mets Once Again

Between innings and planes flying overhead here Sunday night in Shea Stadium, Harry Nilsson could be heard singing, “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” on the public address system.

After Len Dykstra’s inspirational game-winning home run in Game 3, many in the crowd of 55,038 were inclined to agree. But along came Houston Astro right-hander Mike Scott, and if there was a divine touch Sunday night, it came with fingers split apart.

“God couldn’t throw any better,” said Met second baseman Wally Backman after Scott--backed by home runs by Alan Ashby and Dickie Thon--beat the Mets, 3-1, to even the National League playoffs at two games apiece.

The Mets, as they have contended throughout the playoffs, said there was something devilish about Scott’s mastery as well, and this time produced alleged evidence--at least a dozen balls that they claimed had been illegally marked by the Astro pitcher.

“Scott had good scuff,” said Backman, displaying balls handed to him by lockermate Howard Johnson, who pulled them out of his sanitary socks.

Said Johnson: “I’m going to take them home with me and show my wife how to cheat . . . pitchers cheat, hitters don’t.”

Scott has heard it all before.

“They could take balls during the game and take a chain saw to them,” he said. “It’s been going on for two years.”

The Mets came into the game convinced that Scott couldn’t be as good as he was in Game 1, when he shut them out, 1-0, on five hits and struck out a record-tying 14 batters.

And they were right. He was better.

The Mets went 15 batters into the game before Ray Knight got their first hit, a two-out ground ball single to left field.

They finally scored, in their 16th inning against Scott, an infield hit by Mookie Wilson, who went from first to third on an infield out and came home on Rafael Santana’s sacrifice fly, only the second fair ball hit by the Mets that reached the outfield Sunday night.

Fewer Mets struck out (five) than in Game 1, but fewer Mets also hit safely (three), as Scott became the first pitcher in playoff history to throw two complete games in the same series.

“When Bruce Sutter came up with the Cubs, I said that was the greatest split-fingered pitch I ever faced,” said Met first baseman Keith Hernandez, who failed to get the ball out of the infield in four trips against Scott.

“This man’s got a better one.”

Against the rest of the Houston staff, Hernandez is batting .571. Against Scott, he’s hitting .125. In the ninth inning, after Dysktra had stroked an opposite-field single for the Mets’ third hit, Hernandez tapped out weakly to second. Gary Carter, who is 1 for 17 in the series, then flied out to end the game.

“He was better today than in Game 1,” Hernandez said. “He threw harder for five innings than he did in the first game.

“By my third time up, he’d lost his fastball. He didn’t have the velocity. From that point on I watched him, and he went strictly with the split finger.”

Apparently, one pitch was all Scott needed.

“His name is becoming synonymous with overpowering,” catcher Ashby said.

In any word association game, “Ashby” would not be a logical response to “power.” He has played parts of 14 seasons in the big leagues, and had a total of 69 home runs.

But in the second inning, a couple of pitches after Met infielders Ray Knight and Rafael Santana had crossed signals on a catchable foul fly, Ashby hit a two-run home run into the left-field bullpen off Met starter Sid Fernandez.

Three innings later, shortstop Thon--who had just nine home runs since suffering serious eye damage in a beaning by Met pitcher Mike Torrez in April, 1984--homered into the left-field bleachers.

That was just one of three hits allowed in six innings by Fernandez, pitching on his 24th birthday, but the ex-Dodger phenom was still a loser.

Ashby had just one hit in nine trips before his home run, which belied Met Manager Davey Johnson’s remark that Ashby was “no day in the park.”

Houston reliever turned that remark around after the game.

“If Ash ain’t no day in the park, then what’s Carter been,” Kerfeld said. “Ash always comes up with the big hit for us.”

Kerfeld didn’t need to add who comes up with the big pitch for the Astros, who will send rookie left-hander Jim Deshaies against Met ace Dwight Gooden in Game 5 today.

“Maybe we should have one of the kids go over and check his (Scott’s) glove at night,” said Hernandez, suggesting that skullduggery may turn up what no one has been able to find so far--Scott’s alleged modus operandi for scuffing balls.

“You’ve just got to go up there and can’t get defensive,” Hernandez said. “He’s going to make you look like a horse’s (bleep), but that’s the way it goes.”

Dutch Rennert, the plate umpire, said not one Met batter asked to have the baseballs checked Sunday night. Actually, there was one--Howard Johnson, who pinch-hit in the eighth--but Rennert said that ball just had a smudge of dirt on it.

“The Mets say they have 15 balls scuffed in the same spot? Well, that’s amazing,” Rennert said. “I don’t believe it.”

Backman was adamant.

“It’s a joke,” he said, then added: “But if I were a pitcher and could get away with cheating, I guess I would, too.”