Series Metamorphosis

The cocky one hangs on the dugout rail. The wise one huddles within.

The cocky one chomps, and chomps, and blows pink bubbles the size of a subway car. The wise one nurses a water bottle.

The cocky one claps incessantly. The wise one keeps his hands in his pockets.

For the past week, Bobby Valentine has looked as funky and frayed as the New York Mets he manages, while Joe Torre has been as buttoned and zipped as his Yankees.

Until Tuesday, when the World Series traveled 12 pot-holed miles and blew a tire. When the cocky one became the wise one. When the wise one took a nap.

With a 4-2 comeback win in Game 3 at Shea Stadium, the New York Mets broke the unthinkable Yankee streak of 14 consecutive World Series victories while denting the unimaginable 8-0 postseason record of Orlando Hernandez.

All of it completed by the unreal:

Joe Torre was outmanaged.

Bobby Valentine outmanaged him.

Torre was too liberal with his starting pitcher, too conservative with his offense, and too apathetic with his tenor.

Valentine was bolder and smarter and as consistent as his grin.

Torre, a man whom even George Steinbrenner cannot fire, worked the game as if he was afraid to lose his job.

Valentine, a man whose contract expires any minute now, worked the game as if he has a lifetime contract.

After spending much of the last five years sculpting postseason beauties, Torre handled this baby with oven mitts.

After managing most of his major league career with all the touch of a Mack truck, Valentine was suddenly Connie Mack.

On the verge of being swept from the Series, the Mets suddenly trail two games to one with two more games remaining at Shea.

Using that dugout rail as if it was a jungle gym, that’s starting to look pretty cool. Hiding in your jacket isn’t.

“It seems like light years difference between three to nothing and two to one,” Valentine said afterward with a smile.

Incidentally, Valentine says everything with a smile. This is because he knows more than everybody else. On this night that attitude could be completely forgiven, because he actually did.

“This changes things,” said a solemn Torre, and does it ever.

Starting with the way they handled their pitching.

Torre had the game’s best pitcher, Hernandez, who had thrown 121 splendid pitches through seven innings. During that time he had held the Mets to one run, six hits, and stranded seven.

This included an eye-popping sixth inning during which he stranded three runners by retiring three consecutive batters.

However, Hernandez threw 29 pitches in that inning, and even though he rebounded to retire the side in the seventh on only nine pitches, he was increasingly winded.

Add the notion that only 24 hours earlier, teammate Denny Neagle was told to prepare himself to replace Hernandez in the rotation because El Duque was suffering from flu.

Tired, maybe a little sick, the score is tied, the bullpen has been strong . . .

“Yeah, after the seventh, I was going to make a change,” Torre said.

But Hernandez apparently talked louder. And after a gesture-filled meeting in the dugout, Torre left Hernandez in the game to start the eighth.

He lasted only four batters before Benny Agbayani’s double gave the Mets the last lead.

“He said he really felt good, and he has the good track record, and he wasn’t wish-washy about it,” Torre said. “He was very animated.”

So was Steinbrenner when he marched through the dugout after the defeat.

Valentine?

He yanked starting pitcher Rick Reed for a pinch-hitter with bases loaded in the sixth inning even though Reed had retired seven of the previous eight batters.

He yanked left-handed reliever Dennis Cook for another left-handed reliever, John Franco, in the middle of the seventh inning even though there was only a man on first. And even though Cook had earlier struck out Bernie Williams with runners on first and second.

Then, in what appeared to shock even Franco, he replaced the veteran in the ninth inning with struggling closer Armando Benitez, even though Franco had worked out of two eighth-inning jams.

“We’re not winning this thing without Johnny having Armando at his side,” Valentine said. “Johnny did his job. It was time for Armando to do his job. And he did.”

In other words, Valentine wasn’t going to change his lineup just because it was October. He wasn’t going to change, lest his player think they should change.

This is the same reason he started Agbayani, a right-handed hitter, against right-handed Hernandez, even though common sense would dictate a left-handed replacement.

This is also the same reason he let bottom-of-the-order guys Mike Bordick and Jay Payton bat with the bases loaded in the sixth. Even though they both struck out, he said he would do it again.

“It was important to make sure everyone knew I wasn’t panicking,” he said.

As opposed to Torre, who batted Glenallen Hill for former Series MVP Scott Brosius with a runner on first in the eighth . . . yet would not ask Jorge Posada to bunt one batter earlier with a runner on first and none out.

Posada did not have one sacrifice bunt during the season, so it was obvious why Torre would not try it now. But, just wondering, why hasn’t any baseball regular who is not a home run hitter had even one sacrifice during the season?

“‘I just wanted to win the game, and thought those were the best ways to win it,” Valentine said.

They were. The Mets won. He won. There is a chink in the Yankee armor. Under a bit of that opening today, the world can see Joe Torre.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.