Mets Don’t Need Piazza to Rattle Diamondbacks

Talk about picking up the slack.

The New York Mets responded to the absence of Mike Piazza on Friday night with an 11-hit, 9-2 drubbing of the Arizona Diamondbacks that put them within one win of the National League championship series, sustained visions of a Subway Series with the hated Yankees and did a lot more to ease the pain in their catcher’s sprained thumb than the cortisone shot he had received Thursday.

Piazza had an inflammatory response to the injection and probably will also sit out today’s game, when the Mets, taken for dead a week ago, could win this best-of-five series with the Diamondbacks and avoid a return flight to Arizona for a rematch with Randy Johnson in a fifth and decisive game Sunday.

“I hope I wake up tomorrow and it’s better--that would be like Christmas, but right now it doesn’t look good,” Piazza said of the swollen thumb after watching seven Mets collect hits and a total of 10 reach base by hit or walk.

“Ideally,” he continued, “we can wrap it up tomorrow and that would give me two or three more days [before the start of the championship series] to get better. I want to contribute, but I want to make sure I’m effective, and I’m just very happy we won tonight. A lot of guys obviously picked up their game.”

In the first postseason game at Shea Stadium since 1988, a crowd of 56,180 saw the Mets set a division series record by scoring six runs in the sixth inning to wrap up a game in which the Diamondbacks looked every bit the part of a second-year expansion team--walking eight and making three errors.

Omar Daal, a 16-game winner who had won four of six career decisions against the Mets, was consistently behind in the count during an ineffective four innings as the Arizona starter, and neither Darren Holmes nor Dan Plesac could stop the onslaught in the sixth.

The Diamondbacks collected only five hits, with a two-run, pinch-hit homer by Turner Ward against starter Rick Reed in the fifth accounting for their only runs and interrupting a 14-inning scoreless streak by Reed, whose shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates on the final weekend of the regular season helped resuscitate the Mets after their seven-game losing streak.

Reed went six innings in this one before Turk Wendell, John Franco and a new closer named Orel Hershiser wrapped it up.

Hershiser’s flawless ninth marked his first relief appearance since 1989 and awakened memories of a dramatic relief appearance with the Dodgers in the 1988 league championship series at Shea, the year he dominated the postseason, pitching the undermanned Dodgers to upsets of the Mets in the championship series and the Oakland A’s in the World Series.

The Bulldog is 41 now, not scheduled to start against the Diamondbacks despite an 8-3 postseason record, and happy for any opportunity.

“I love pitching in these games and feel good that Bobby [Valentine, Met manager] has the confidence to bring me out of the bullpen,” Hershiser said. “It’s fun coming in for one inning and knowing you can let it all hang out, especially when it’s 9-2. Just hand me a mop.”

In dusting off the Diamondbacks, the Mets got another big performance by 40-year-old Rickey Henderson, the catalytic leadoff hitter of whom Hershiser said, “I think he’s genetically blessed in the same way that Nolan Ryan was genetically blessed.”

Henderson, who batted .314 with 37 stolen bases during the regular season, had three hits Friday, giving him a .455 average in the three games with Arizona, and stole his sixth base, a division series record.

“This has been a magical and fantastic year for Rickey,” Valentine said. “Every time you think you’ve seen it all, he turns it up and gives you more, and he does it with his customary excitement and flair. It’s been pretty impressive.”

The Mets also got two hits from Benny Agbayani, who moved into Piazza’s cleanup spot, and two from John Olerud, who is unfazed by the presence of left-handed pitching. The left-handed hitting machine homered against southpaw Johnson in Game 1 and delivered his two key hits in Game 3 off left-handers Daal and Plesac. Catcher Todd Pratt, replacing Piazza, had two walks, both contributing to Met scores.

“Any time you lose a guy like Mike it hurts a little,” said Darryl Hamilton, who came off the bench to deliver a two-run single, “but everybody was conscious of picking up the pace. It shows what we’re capable of. It was huge.”