AS FAR AS the Mets are concerned, the ball that flew off Robin Ventura’s bat in the 15th inning of a five-hour, 46-minute ballgame took off from Flushing and came down somewhere in Atlanta, because that is how far the Braves now have to go to pick it up.
Not only the baseball, but the pieces of their previously unimpeded path to the World Series, which has suddenly become a mine field of surprises, all of them unpleasant.
The latest came when, having fallen behind 3-2 after 14 innings of a game played for the last three hours in a downpour, the Mets rallied for five runs – only two of which actually counted – to win 4-3 and close the gap to 3-2.
It must have been as rainy a night in Georgia as it was at Shea Stadium last night, because now the NLCS is headed back to Atlanta, where the Mets have a real chance not just to be an annoyance, but a conqueror.
Ventura’s blow – officially an RBI single but under normal circumstances, a game-winning grand slam – was not only the most dramatic hit of a most dramatic season, but also the biggest hit seen at Shea since Todd Pratt sent one over the centerfield fence and his team to Atlanta for this NLCS engagement against the Braves.
That was just eight days ago against the Diamondbacks, but it seems like a lifetime, for the Mets and Ventura. Both have been declared dead several times since and both of them refuse to stay buried. As a result, both are very much alive today, against all odds and in defiance of all logic.
But the amount of adversity the Mets have overcome to have closed to within one game of the Braves is nothing compared to what Ventura had to overcome just to stand in the batter’s box yesterday, against Kevin McGlinchy, the last reliever available in the Braves’ bullpen and a righthander who had never pitched at a level higher than A ball before this season.
“I feel so good for Robin,” Darryl Hamilton said. “What [ticks] me off is that everybody’s been ripping him but nobody realizes he’s been going out there on one leg. He’s been in terrible pain but he goes out there every day and never complains. He’s a gamer. I’ll take him on my team any day.”
About all Ventura, the strong, silent type, would admit about his left knee is that, “it’s not quite 100 percent, but you just do what you can do.”
Over the past month, Ventura hasn’t been able to do much. He went from an MVP candidate in July to the side of a milk carton in September.
And until he finally lined a single off Mike Remlinger in the 11th inning, in his fifth at-bat of the game, Ventura had gone hitless in 16 at-bats in the NLCS.
Forty years ago, Gil Hodges went 0-for-24 in a World Series while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and people all over town lit candles in church for him. These days, people don’t light candles for ballplayers anymore. Instead, the Shea crowd grew increasingly restless when Ventura came to bat. Then, it got to the point where the announcement of his turn at-bat caused hardly a ripple from the home crowd. Just like that, Robin Ventura had ceased to exist as a respected member of the Mets lineup.
He never lost his stature in the clubhouse, where teammates who once marveled at his power and consistency now were impressed by his ability to remain upbeat while stuck in the depths of a hitter’s worst nightmare.
“Robin’s always laughing and smiling around the clubhouse,” said Shawon Dunston, whose refusal to give in to McGlinchy resulted in the leadoff single in the 15th that began the winning rally. “He’s 0-for-15 and he’s smiling. Not joking around, but smiling in a nice way.”
After the Mets lost 1-0 Friday night on an unearned run in the first inning, Ventura came in with a message from his 7-year-old daughter, Rachel. “He told us his daughter sang that ‘Annie’ song to him that morning,” Dunston said. “You know, ‘the sun will come out tomorrow.’ You learn a lot from players like that, about keeping an even keel and controlling your emotions and just being a professional.”
Some of the Mets could have learned another lesson from Ventura last night.
Although the ball was clearly headed for parts unknown beyond the right-field wall from the moment it left Ventura’s bat, he went no farther than first base. It was the first time he could remember not running out a home run.
“I saw it go over, but I knew that just as long as I touched first, we won,” Ventura said. “That was fine with me.”
Under pressure, he acknowledged the shot was “probably” the most important hit of his career. He even claimed to be overjoyed by it, although it was tough to tell by his demeanor.
“I’m just exhausted,” he said. “You know, all wet and everything.”
Actually, Ventura nearly sent everyone home an inning earlier when he connected solidly with John Rocker’s heater, but in that kind of weather, baseballs don’t really fly, they swim. That ball drowned a few yards in front of the warning track in center.
“He had a great swing at that fastball, but you could tell he had hardly anything left,” manager Bobby Valentine said. “But there was something big left.”
It certainly didn’t seem that way when the Braves took the lead in the top of the 15th on a single by Walt Weiss and a Keith Lockhart laser that skipped between Dunston and Benny Agbayani for a triple.
Once again, there were three outs left in the Mets season and even the players seemed to sense that this time may have been it.
“I don’t think you can say there was a feeling we were going to do it,” Ventura said.
But the feeling began to build when Dunston, on the 12th pitch of his at-bat following six fouls, singled up the middle.
Matt Franco walked, and so did John Olerud, intentionally, after Edgardo Alfonzo had bunted the runners to second and third. Up came Pratt, the hero against the D-Backs in the NLDS.
This time, he had to settle for a walk, forcing in the tying run and bringing up Ventura, who had hit three grand slams in the regular season and shares the lead with Harold Baines for career salamis with 13.
“I was just looking for a pitch I could hit in the air,” Ventura said.
Ventura just missed the 1-0 fastball, fouling it straight back, then watched as McGlinchy’s next pitch strayed way wide, forcing catcher Greg Myers to stretch to prevent a game-ending wild pitch.
The next one was a hitter’s best friend, the medium-speed fastball that sits out over the middle of the plate. Or, in other words, a mistake.
“It just seemed like my swing got smoother there all of a sudden,” Ventura said.
That is bad news for the Braves. For the first four games of this series – plus 10 innings of the fifth -they have faced a Mets lineup without Robin Ventura. The Mets are still here. Now, Ventura has rejoined them.
Don’t throw away those Metrocards just yet.