Cedeno Looking Like Steal of the Year

The New York Mets had other things on their minds Saturday night. They weren’t inclined to be sending thank-you notes.

Otherwise they might have wired Kevin Malone and the Dodgers to express their gratitude for Roger Cedeno and Armando Benitez, who helped them stave off the embarrassment of a four-game elimination in the National League championship series.

In a game of limited offense, Cedeno created a lot of what there was. He had three of New York’s five hits and stole two bases in the decisive eighth inning of a 3-2 victory over the celebrated John Rocker and his Atlanta Braves, a victory saved by the heat-dispensing Benitez in a 1-2-3 ninth.

And so a Mets’ team that has had more lives than Sybil lives to face Greg Maddux this afternoon, providing expected rain doesn’t intercede.

It proved to be a dark day for the Dodgers on Dec. 1 when Malone traded Cedeno and catcher Charles Johnson to the Mets for Todd Hundley and his suspect elbow, with the Mets then shipping Johnson to the Baltimore Orioles for Benitez.

Steve Phillips, the Met general manager, might not have pulled a heist (he refused to bite on that Saturday night), but the deal helped turn around two seasons:

* The dismal Dodgers, having given up on Cedeno and left to pay journeyman Devon White big bucks on a multiyear contract, suffered with Hundley, who was physically not ready. He failed to provide the needed left-handed power, and his limited throwing ability in the absence of the defensively gifted Johnson prompted Chan Ho Park and other starting pitchers to change their mechanics with runners on base, leading to the breakdown in a rotation expected to be the club’s foundation.

* The wild-card Mets prospered with the two additions. Cedeno, in and out of the lineup with the Dodgers, had a breakthrough season in which he batted .314 with 66 stolen bases. Benitez, who has been consistently throwing more than 100 mph, appeared in 77 games, saved 22 and picked up the closer slack when John Franco was lost for three months because of a finger injury in mid- season.

“Not many clubs can lose a John Franco and have an Armando Benitez to turn to,” Phillips said. “We didn’t miss a beat.”

Not many clubs can turn to a guy with the velocity of Benitez.

“The joke on our staff is that we would all like to be able to throw one pitch as hard as Armando does just to see what it would be like,” Orel Hershiser said. “And when he locates his fastball, his breaking pitches become unhittable. It’s unfair.”

The Braves have won 12 of 16 games from the Mets this year, but Benitez has retired all 26 of the Atlanta batters he has faced, including the last three Saturday night after the Mets came back from the eighth-inning homers by Brian Jordan and Ryan Klesko to mount a two-run rally in the bottom of the inning.

Cedeno started it with his third single. Rey Ordonez popped up a sacrifice attempt in the kind of fundamental breakdown that has haunted the Mets in this series. Benny Agbayani struck out against Mike Remlinger, but as Melvin Mora was drawing a pivotal walk (“That was as good an at-bat as we’ve had in a long time,” Manager Bobby Valentine said), Cedeno, who almost always has a green light, stole second.

Now Rocker replaced Remlinger, and as the dreaded southpaw warmed up, Mora, a young player Valentine credits with instinct far beyond his rookie status, trotted to second base and encouraged Cedeno to run if he got the chance. Cedeno said he was already thinking in that direction, knowing that Rocker would be focused strictly on John Olerud, the hitter, which Rocker would later acknowledge.

“You never want to make the third out at third base, particularly in a situation where the game is on the line, but if Roger feels he can get a jump, I’m behind him all the way,” Valentine said. “There hasn’t been a lot of opportunity to try anything in this series.”

On a 1-and-1 pitch to Olerud that he took down and in for a ball, Cedeno and Mora negotiated a double steal with such a jump that catcher Eddie Perez made no throw. Olerud then bounced his game-winning single up the middle with Cedeno and Mora embracing as they crossed the plate, and Cedeno pumping his fist at Rocker, maybe to rub it in, although he smiled sheepishly later and said, “I’ve never done that before. I don’t ever try to embarrass anyone.”

For Cedeno, of course, the green lights of the eighth inning were another illustration of a confidence the Mets have shown in him as opposed to what he experienced with the Dodgers.

“One team believes you can do it and the other doesn’t,” he said. “But I always tried to believe that bad things happen for a good reason. I was frustrated with the Dodgers, but I tried to stay positive, believing it was going to turn.”

It did on Dec. 1.

“We knew that Roger had a tremendous upside and could still realize it,” Phillips said. “We felt that with the change in environment he could recapture what our reports said he could do. We didn’t think it could happen as quickly as it did, but Roger has made the most of the opportunity.”

The Mets hadn’t been doing that in three consecutive one-run losses. They are batting .180 in the series, but Olerud’s first career hit off Rocker and his earlier homer against John Smoltz might indicate an awakening by a key hitter.

“If you’re not hitting, you have to make things happen,” Cedeno said of the Mets in general.

“If the manager lets me go, I’m going to go.”

The manager let him go Saturday night, as he has for most of a season in which it was the Dodgers who made the mistake of letting the young outfielder and the standout catcher go.