Weaver Good, Glavine Better

About the time it began to feel like New York here, as the napkins and hot dog wrappers blew across the Shea Stadium diamond and the crowd stomped and a baseball game was left to be won, the New York Mets began to look like the New York Mets again.

Their ace designate, Tom Glavine, wedged his left foot on the rubber’s third base side, shutout innings mounting. Their high-end slugger, Carlos Beltran, held a bat above his left ear, when a single swing would be enough to beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

In a National League Championship Series opener that was at once playoff taut and layoff listless, the Mets dominated the handful of pivotal moments and defeated the Cardinals, 2-0.

Glavine did not give up a run over seven innings, leaving his bullpen to pitch past Albert Pujols one final time, which it did.

Afterward, Glavine said, “I feel like I’m pitching as well as I have at any point during the year.”

He threw six shutout innings against the Dodgers six nights earlier.

And Beltran became the first to make sense of a suddenly effective Jeff Weaver, who gave up one base hit through 5 2/3 innings, then Paul Lo Duca’s single and Beltran’s long home run, which beat him and the Cardinals.

“He threw me a pitch in the middle of the plate,” Beltran said, “and as soon as I hit it, I knew it was going to be out of the ballpark and it was going to give us the lead and I was very happy about it, because Tommy was pitching a great ballgame.”

The Cardinals lined into one early double play and ran into another, had only two runners reach scoring position, then pinch-hitter Scott Spiezio popped to second base with a runner on first against closer Billy Wagner to end the ninth.

Game 2 is tonight at Shea Stadium.

The Mets forged their one-game lead amid a pitchers’ game, both teams’ hitters appearing as though they’d left their strokes in the down time between series.

So, it came down to a pitch, and a swing.

“It pains me that ... Jeff’s name for tomorrow,” Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa began, then restarted. “There’s no way to suggest he’s a losing pitcher. He was equally as good [as Glavine]. Two outs, nobody on, two-run [homer] like that, we can’t break through offensively. Jeff was outstanding. So was Glavine.”

Weaver completed a harrowing regular season with five wins in nine decisions for the Cardinals and a National League earned-run average higher than 5 (a run better than it had been in the American League), but a guaranteed place in the playoff rotation.

La Russa had lost Mark Mulder to shoulder surgery and Jason Marquis to general ineffectiveness, and Weaver showed improvement down the stretch, posting his best monthly ERA in September.

He beat the San Diego Padres in Game 2 of the division series, giving up two hits and no runs in five innings. La Russa, ahead of the game, removed him after 79 pitches.

And Weaver was again commanding against the Mets, who had one hit -- a Shawn Green single in the third -- and few good swings through five innings.

In fact, the first confident, aggressive cut might have been Beltran’s, on a one-strike fastball with one on and two out in the sixth. He fouled it straight back.

By then, a soft breeze at game time had intensified, and whipped Weaver’s red sleeves against his arms. With Lo Duca at first base, the crowd, too, sensed the Mets were closing in on Weaver.

Fans stood as Weaver missed wide to the left-handed-hitting Beltran with a fastball and then low with a slider, bringing the count to 2-and-2 and increasing the likelihood of another fastball.

The fastball -- his 80th pitch -- arrived at 92 mph, near the middle of the strike zone. Beltran, who with the Houston Astros in the NLCS two years ago hit four home runs against the Cardinals, hit that fastball off the base of the scoreboard in right field. It carried 430 feet, far enough that Cardinals right fielder Juan Encarnacion barely glanced over his shoulder.

The Mets were ahead, where they stayed, and afterward a New Yorker groped for perspective, calling Beltran the “new” Reggie Jackson.

“I’m Carlos Beltran,” he answered.

tim.brown@latimes.com

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Postseason wins

Mets pitcher Tom Glavine is third on the all-time list for postseason victories (* all in the World Series):

*--* PITCHER W L PCT. John Smoltz 15 4 789 Andy Pettitte 14 9 608 Tom Glavine 13 15 464 Roger Clemens 12 8 600 Greg Maddux 11 14 440 David Wells 10 5 667 Dave Stewart 10 6 625 Whitey Ford 10* 8 556

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Source: Associated Press