On the Mets beat

BY DAVID LENNON

SAN DIEGO – Manager Willie Randolph is the one with the sling on his right arm, but it was pitching coach Rick Peterson who wore the pained expression last night when he came out to take the baseball from reliever Joe Smith in the eighth inning.

Peterson had stood in the same spot a few moments earlier to caution Smith about facing Geoff Blum and the words of advice went naught when the Padres’ second baseman ripped a tie-breaking single that toppled the Mets, 5-4, at PETCO Park.

Smith did more than just lose the game. His eighth-inning meltdown also tanked the Mets’ inspired comeback from a 4-0 deficit. Carlos Delgado got it started with a leadoff home run against Royce Ring in the seventh and David Wright tied the score with a three-run shot off Scott Linebrink with two outs in the eighth.

“It -----,” Smith said. “Nobody wants to do that.”

The Mets’ bullpen had allowed only three earned runs in its previous 34 innings, including a scoreless seventh from Scott Schoeneweis last night. But Smith issued a one-out walk to Khalil Greene, and after whiffing Josh Bard, he gave up a single to Kevin Kouzmanoff that just got past Wright.

“It was a little bit of bad luck,” Wright said, “and a little bit of not catching the breaks.”

Peterson visited for a quick chat, telling Smith to keep the ball down. But he left a 3-and-1 changeup in a good spot for to Blum, who lined it into rightfield to deliver the winning run.

“I threw two horrible changeups before that,” Smith said. “You can’t hang one on the outer third [of the plate]. It has to be on the black and low. It could have been better.”

Trevor Hoffman finished up for his 26th save and the Mets, after dropping two of three to the Padres, now head to Los Angeles for a rough four-game series. The Dodgers swept the Mets in their previous visit to Chavez Ravine (June 11-13).

In the seventh inning, Heath Bell bailed out Ring, his former Mets teammate, but Linebrink – the bridge to Hoffman – collapsed in the eighth. With two outs, Linebrink walked both Jose Valentin and Carlos Beltran, then teed up a first-pitch fastball to Wright, who drove it into the leftfield seats for the tying homer.

The ball was hit so hard that it cleared the wall in an instant, but only by a few feet, and Wright celebrated his 17th homer with Jose Reyes in the customary dancing handshake fashion.
“Going up there knowing he was having problems throwing strikes, I was thinking first-pitch fastball,” Wright said. “I got lucky and got under it.”

Greg Maddux pulled another one of his early disappearing acts, but the Padres have the bullpen to cover for him -- usually. Cla Meredith pitched a perfect sixth inning before Delgado greeted Ring with a long home run to open the seventh. Delgado got lucky because Mike Cameron nearly made a great leaping catch. While he timed his jump perfectly, Cameron closed his glove too early, and the ball caromed off the back side for Delgado’s 15th home run and first since July 7.

“It was right in front of me,” said Delgado, who could see the ball’s flight. “I thought he was going to catch it. I was glad to see it go over the fence.”

No one has owned the Mets like Maddux. He entered last night’s game with 35 wins against them, the most by any opposing pitcher, and that mastery was on display again in the early innings. Maddux struck out the side in the first on 11 pitches and retired 12 of 14 through four innings.

But the knock on Maddux has been his early exits, and once the Padres built him a 4-0 lead, he didn’t return for the sixth despite throwing only 65 pitches though five. Maddux allowed just four singles and matched his season high with six strikeouts, which he had not done since April 11 against the Giants.

John Maine’s troubles continued last night as soon as he stepped on the mound. In the first inning, a leadoff walk to Brian Giles was an immediate red flag, and one out later, Gonzalez ripped a double right past the glove side of Carlos Delgado. The first baseman barely moved as the ball shot by him into rightfield and Giles scored easily.

“He didn’t get his glove down,” Randolph said. “It was one of those plays that set the tone for the game. It was hit pretty crisply, but you have to ask him if he saw it or not.”

Said Delgado: “It kind of stayed down on me. I thought I had it. It was a play I should have made.”

Maine recovered to whiff Cameron, but another of the Mets’ weak spots was exposed when Khalil Greene poked a soft fly ball into shallow right. Shawn Green charged in, but his diving attempt came up inches short when the ball dropped in front of his extended glove for an RBI-single that put the Padres ahead, 2-0.

San Diego stranded two when Maine got Kevin Kouzmanoff on a fly out and he set down the side in order the next inning. But Maine made a loud mistake to begin the third when Milton Bradley crushed his first pitch for a 427-foot homer into the right-centerfield seats. Bradley was 7-for-22 with three RBI since his release from the A’s, but that was his first home run in six games with the Padres.

Once the applause faded, Maine retired eight of the next nine hitters, with Blum’s two-out double the only blemish in the fourth inning. But that smooth stretch came to an abrupt end when Adrian Gonzalez hammered a 409-foot homer, and like Bradley, he jumped on the first pitch.