Piazza Probable for Tonight

With reduced swelling and pain in his injured left thumb, Mike Piazza was able to take batting practice Monday in Atlanta and said he expected to be behind the plate tonight when the New York Mets open the National League’s championship series against the Braves.

“I’ve never been good in math, but if I were to guess right now, I’m probably close to 90%, and in another 24 hours it should be a lot better,” Piazza said. “I don’t want to say anything definite, but I expect to play. The pain has definitely subsided, and the swelling is down a lot. I’ll probably continue to wear the support wrap, which I’ve played with before.”

Piazza missed the final two games of the division series with the Arizona Diamondbacks after suffering an inflammatory response to a cortisone injection in his sprained thumb.

Todd Pratt, his replacement, hit a game-winning homer in the 10th inning Saturday to put the Mets into the NLCS.

Manager Bobby Valentine said the injury might have been a blessing in disguise:

“I think the time off is absolutely what the doctor ordered for Mike. Everything that’s been said about late-season fatigue, that’s a natural situation with a catcher who plays in over 140 games. Mike had no break at the end, and that was kind of my mistake. At it turned out, it got rectified.”

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Valentine claims the Braves have not given his team any respect. Asked about that, Piazza said that in the playoff spotlight, all the “trash talking gets sort of magnified, amplified or whatever you want to say.”

He said the Braves, seeing the Mets come back from the dead again, are probably saying, “How many times are you guys going to come back for your beating? And we’re the proverbial sort of kid on the block who is maybe trying to work out and get stronger and do something different to finally beat up the bully. Hopefully, this will be that time.

“I think we’re playing with an attitude of, ‘We have nothing to lose.’ No one obviously expected us to be here right now, and that’s the way we feel, so we’re kind of having fun with it. And I think you have to have that attitude.”

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The National League suspended Met third base coach Cookie Rojas for five games and fined him an undisclosed amount for “overly aggressive behavior” and pushing umpire Charlie Williams during a volatile argument in Game 4 of the division series.

Rojas insisted again Monday that Williams bumped him first and questioned his parentage, but he will begin serving the suspension tonight.