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A little faith

All it took for the Mets to bounce back was one good hit

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By John Donovan, CNNSI.com

	• Storylines • All Thumbs • Heroes & Bums • High Hard Ones • The Pitch • The Bottom Line

NEW YORK -- It was a strange sight, watching New York Mets first baseman Todd Zeile square up to bunt in the bottom of the sixth with the Mets down a run, men on first and second and nobody out in Game 3 of the World Series.

Was manager Bobby Valentine really going to play for just one run against the New York Yankees? Was he going to take the bat out of the hands of one of his hottest hitters?

Zeile, batting fifth in the Mets' order, looked over at third base coach Cookie Rojas and saw the sign. He squared to bunt. He took a strike.

Then, he looked over at Rojas again. He looked at the bench again.

And then he made it known what he was thinking. Not with a wink or a tip of his hat. Not with some strange telepathic communication.

"I looked into the dugout and said, 'Let me swing the bat,'" Zeile recalled Tuesday night after Game 3. "We're there in the middle of the lineup for a reason."

The bunt sign was taken off, Zeile drove in the tying run with a double to left-center field and the Mets went on to score two runs in the bottom of the eighth to win 4-2.

The Mets proved a lot to a lot of people Tuesday night. They proved that they can be aggressive, but not so aggressive they hurt themselves.

They proved they can overcome not scoring after having the bases loaded with no one out. They proved that their closer, Armando Benitez, can come through in the clutch, just days after failing to do so.

And the Mets proved Tuesday night, thanks to Zeile and others, that sometimes, all it takes is a little faith.

On to the World Series Day at a Glance, which asks: Does the Mets' win Tuesday night mean this is really a Series now?

The answer: Well, it's a heck of a lot more a Series now than it was after Sunday's game.

A Series? Game 3 was huge for the Mets. Huge. It restored some confidence, showed them they could beat the Yankees even when the Yankees play great, and it showed the Yankees that the Mets plan to make a Series of this baby.
The No. 4 guys Who knows? The Mets' big one-two pitching punch (Leiter and Hampton) couldn't do it. The Yankees' big guy (El Duque) couldn't do it Tuesday. Now, the bottoms of the rotations throw at each other. Who knows?
Whassup, Bernie? The Yankees lead this Series, let's not forget, and they're doing it without their star center fielder. Bernie Williams is pulling his normal World Series snooze (0-for-11). The Yankees need him to wake up.
Timo-less And the Mets are back in the Series even without that spark at the top of their order. Timo Perez is hitting .077 and has not scored a run or swiped a base.
The Mets . How many teams would have folded? How many teams, facing what the Mets were facing, would have started to overswing, to tense up, to choke? The Mets didn't.
Game 3 . No baserunning errors, no errors afield, no failing to protect the runner or wild pitchers. Game 3 was World Series baseball at its best. Tense, well-played ... almost made you forget that Clemens guy, didn't it?
The Noise . Good games, good teams, good fans don't need artificial stimulation from an over-amplified sound system or a stupidly stone-aged animated scoreboard. In between innings, it would be nice if the fans in the stands could talk about the game without screaming. And when something's happening, let the fans scream. We'd rather hear that than another chorus of "Who Let ..."
Too much time . Tuesday's game featured a Series-tying 25 strikeouts, which would make you think the game maybe zipped along. Wrong. Three hours, 39 minutes. If this Series goes much longer, everyone in New York will look more zombie-like than they do already.
Hero -- Benny Agbayani: The Mets' left fielder drove in the winning run Tuesday night and is hitting .364 for the Series. And to think he almost didn't make this club.
Bum -- Bernie Williams: He came into this Series hitting .151 in the World Series, and he's 0-for-11 in this one. For a guy with a .304 lifetime average, you have to wonder what's up.
Hero -- John Franco: The native New Yorker and veteran reliever got his first World Series win Tuesday night.
Bum -- Jose Vizcaino: After his sizzling start in Game 1 (4-for-6 with the game-winning hit), the Yankees' second baseman has gone 0-for-8. Is it time for Joe Torre to give Knoblauch back the job, at least in Shea?
Hero -- Todd Zeile: He had the only two hits off Roger Clemens in Game 2, and he had two big hits Tuesday off Hernandez. The Mets' first baseman is hitting .462, and he barely missed homers in Games 1 and 2.
Bum -- Edgardo Alfonzo: The Mets need this guy to catch fire. A .154 average (2-for-13) with a team-high five strikeouts in the Series isn't cutting it.
The Mets won Tuesday because they made no mistakes and stopped pressing in their at-bats against El Duque.
The Yankees know -- boy, do they know -- that they let one slip by Tuesday.
Don't look now. One more Mets win means another shot at Roger Clemens.
Paul O'Neill is, as Lou Piniella often has said, a professional hitter.
If the Mets can get one more win at Shea ... this weekend, this city will erupt.
A look at the Game 4 pitchers Yankees' Denny Neagle (15-9 regular season, 4.52 ERA). Was 7-7 with a 5.81 ERA after coming over from the Reds on July 12. Started World Series game against the Yankees when he was with the Braves in '96, a no-decision. He's 7-3 lifetime against the Mets, with a 3.89 ERA. A lefty, throws a split-finger, a cutter and he has a decent changeup.
Mets' Bobby J. Jones (11-6 regular season, 5.06 ERA). Making his first start in the World Series. He's 0-3 lifetime against the Yankees, with a 6.38 ERA, and 0-2 this season with a 7.71 ERA. Threw a one-hitter against the Giants in the division series. A lefty, he throws a hard slider and a decent but not overpowering fastball.
At least this thing wasn't a sweep. At least the Subway Series wasn't a total bore. And now, with the Mets showing life and a pitching matchup in Game 4 that is a tossup ... this could get very interesting.

The World Series Day at a Glance appears every day through the conclusion of the Series.

 

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