THE WORLD SERIES : New York Mets vs. Boston Red Sox : Notebook : Unsung Barrett Low-Key About Success

Marty Barrett seems almost apologetic about it.

Boston’s unsung second baseman, a .277 hitter before he batted .286 this season, will enter Game 6 of the World Series tonight having already broken the late Thurman Munson’s 11-year record for postseason hits.

A 2-for-4 performance in Thursday night’s 4-2 victory over the New York Mets gave Barrett 20 hits in 12 playoff and Series games, one more than Munson’s record.

“I didn’t even know I was close until a friend called from Arizona,” Barrett said.

“If anything, Thurman deserves someone better than Marty Barrett to break his record. I mean, I just happened to be hot at the right time.”

Hot? Thermal is more like it. Barrett has a .429 Series average, having hit in all five games. He has eight multi-hit games in postseason play and is 20 for 41 overall, a .488 average.

“I’m more confident about my hitting than I’ve ever been, but those aren’t my kind of numbers,” Barrett said. “I got off to a good start in both the playoffs and Series. I’ve had no reason to press. I’ve been loose all the way.”

And tonight, Barrett said, he expects Roger Clemens to wrap up a World Series championship when Clemens pitches against former teammate Bob Ojeda.

“You can take it to the bank,” Barrett said. “I don’t think Ojeda has too much of a chance against Clemens. Bobby is a real good friend of mine, but I don’t think he’s used to pitching on three days’ rest. I think it’s going to hurt his control.

“For us, this has been a dream season. It’s been Roger’s season from the start, so why not have him finish it off for us? It’s the perfect ending.”

Doesn’t it seem unlikely that the Mets can win a World Series without Dwight Gooden producing even one win?

“You better believe it,” Met Manager Davey Johnson agreed at a press conference Friday.

Gooden is 0-3 in postseason play, although he pitched well in the playoffs before yielding 17 hits and 10 runs in the 9 innings of his two Series starts.

Gooden failed to go beyond five innings in either and required a total of 188 pitches, a remarkable gauge of his struggle. A Newsday headline on a story dealing with Dr. K’s short stint of Thursday night read: “MALPRACTICE.”

“When I had to take him out last night, the look on his face was unbelievable,” Johnson said, alluding to the fifth inning of Thursday night’s game. “It was as if he was taking all the blame and saying, ‘Hey, I’m the one who’s let you down.’

“I made it a point later to tell him that he hadn’t let us down at all, that we wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for him and that I expect him to come back even better next year.

“I don’t care what people say, he hasn’t lost his velocity. But there were times that he didn’t get his usual movement with it.

“I don’t know why that is, but I do think he’s tried to do too much at times, tried to live up to his contract and reputation, and taken away from his natural stuff by overthrowing. He’s still only 21 and vulnerable to mistakes.”

At any rate, the Doctor isn’t what he used to be, according to the Red Sox.

“He used to have one of those pretty motions,” Barrett said. “Easy gas, they call it. Now he looks awkward on the mound. He’s falling off toward first base, dropping his arm on the fastball. He’s still got good stuff, but it’s not unhittable like it was two years ago.”

Don Baylor, citing the full-count change-up that Gooden threw to Dwight Evans when Evans delivered a key single in the fifth inning Thursday night, shook his head and said: “A change-up? I knew right there he had a half-(bleep) fastball.

“I played in New York for three years, and he’s different now. The confidence he used to have wasn’t there. You can tell when a pitcher has it. Gooden spent a lot of time walking around the mound. He seemed more interested in rubbing up the ball instead of throwing it.”

Former Dodger Sid Fernandez, who pitched four shutout innings in relief of Gooden, striking out 5 and retiring 10 in a row at one point, refused to gloat or claim that the Mets should have used a four-man Series rotation instead of just a three-man.

Said Fernandez, 16-6 in ‘86: “I’ve got a couple good friends in Hawaii who were watching the games. They called to cheer me up. They told me to just keep my mouth shut and do the best I can when I got in there. That’s what I decided to do.”

Keith Hernandez, the Met first baseman who was with St. Louis in 1982 when the Cardinals came back from a 3-2 World Series deficit against the Milwaukee Brewers, intends to remind his New York teammates about that before tonight’s game.

“I’ll show them my World Series ring and tell them, ‘Hey, we were also down, 3-2.’ ”

Hernandez said he may eventually meet with leaders of the Major League Players Assn. to see if a protest can be mounted against the Series starting time of 8:30 p.m.

“It’s brutal,” he said. “We’re talking about getting back to the hotel at 1:30 or 2 in the morning with room service backed up more than an hour. I didn’t get to bed before 4 all four nights in Boston.”

Ojeda, who will try to duplicate his Game 3 victory tonight, called the Boston press corps “media maggots” when he pitched there. He still isn’t high on their work.

“I can’t wait to get out of here,” he said in the Met clubhouse at Fenway Park Thursday night. “Nothing changes. They never change. They get to a World Series and they still write negatively. It’s a joke. The fans are great. They don’t dwell on the negative in spite of the writers. I’m happy I don’t have to deal with that junk anymore.”

Saying he doesn’t want to look back 20 years from now and wonder what might have been, New York outfielder Danny Heep plans to leave the Mets as a free agent when the Series ends.

A six-year veteran, Heep, 29, has never been in more than 115 games in a season. This season, he hit .286 in 195 at-bats. “I just don’t think there’s a market for me in New York,” he said. “I mean, I’m never going to achieve anything with only 195 at-bats.”

Dwight Evans suggested that the Red Sox might start checking Len Dykstra’s bat.

“He’s hitting the ball farther than he should be,” Evans said.

It’s more than pain. Bill Buckner knows there will be another price to pay for his determination to play hurt. Arthritis, maybe. A lifelong limp.

“I’ve been taking anti-inflammatory drugs for 10 years,” he said. “I’ve been taking two pills a day for 10 years. I’ve had all kinds of shots. I’ve had nine shots this year alone.”

He was reminded that Sandy Koufax retired because he didn’t want to go through the same thing.

“I understand that,” Buckner said. “Johnny Bench retired for the same reason. He wanted to be able to walk and play golf. I don’t feel that way. I know what I’m getting into, but I think it’s worth it.”

The toughest part of a World Series apparently isn’t the pressure of the games or coping with the media. It’s handling the ticket requests.

“I feel like Ticketron,” Red Sox reliever Joe Sambito said.

Said Ron Darling, who was raised in Millbury, Mass., and bought about 100 tickets for the three games in Boston: “I need to get my Series share just to break even.”

Some odd odds and ends about Clemens, Boston’s Game 6 starting pitcher:

--Clemens has lost only one game on the road this season, July 30 at Chicago. In road games, he is 13-1 with five no-decisions.

--Clemens has thrown 3,784 pitches this season, 65.8% for strikes.

--When Clemens gets ahead of a batter, no balls and two strikes, he strikes that batter out 57% of the time. He has allowed no home runs this year on an 0-and-2 count.

--When Clemens gets ahead of a batter, period, he strikes that batter out 43% of the time.

Who will be at first base for the Red Sox tonight, Buckner or Baylor? Buckner, limping along on two bad ankles, is batting .174 against the Mets. Baylor, a designated hitter only at Fenway Park, is batting .200. Buckner is left-handed, Baylor is right-handed, and New York’s starting pitcher, Ojeda, is left-handed.

Friday, Boston Manager John McNamara said he was leaning toward Buckner. Maybe.

“It’ll be Billy Buckner, if he’s still hobbling the way he is; if he’s 100%, he’ll be there,” McNamara said.

Uh, OK.

Roger McDowell and Hernandez were the Mets’ representatives at the press conference. Both were asked if a loss to the underdog Red Sox in the World Series would tarnish their season.

Said reliever McDowell: “We’re not going to be happy unless we get it. A lot was expected of usm and we expected a lot from ourselves. But for a team that won 108 games this year. . . .

“We went into the playoffs, and people said we hadn’t played a big game all year. They said we would falter under those conditions. But we went 12 innings in one game and 16 in another (against Houston) and won both of them. We showed our capabilities.”

Said Hernandez: “It would have been tarnished if we would’ve been swept. But we showed our character by winning those two games in Boston.”

Times staff writer Mike Penner contributed to this story.