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Mariners vs. Yankees |
Mets vs. Cardinals
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Thursday, October 12
Hampton makes big pitch in opener
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
ST. LOUIS -- Six months from now, who knows where Mike Hampton will be? Who knows what uniform he'll be wearing? Who knows what kind of offseason bidding war will have put him into that uniform?
But for the New York Mets, that's a problem they can have a nervous breakdown over some other day. All that mattered to them Wednesday night was that Mike Hampton was still on their side, wearing their uniform.
|  | | Mike Hampton kept the ball at the knees all night long. |
All that mattered was that the Mets are one game closer to their first World Series in 14 years.
The arithmetic in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series was Mets 6, Cardinals 2. The story was Mike Hampton.
Once, there was some debate about whether Hampton should even have been starting Game 1 over Al Leiter. Here is how Hampton answered when it came time for him to state his side in that debate:
With seven shutout innings. In Busch Stadium. Against a team that averaged eight runs a game against the Braves in the first round of these playoffs. Against a team that hadn't been shut out since August 20.
Good answer.
Watching him, it was hard to believe he'd never won a postseason game before. (He was 0-2 in four starts, with a 5.87 ERA.)
Watching him, it was hard to believe he was only 15-10 this season for the Mets.
Because when this guy is burying one grenade after another at the knees, it's amazing that anyone ever hits a ball in the air. And in case you hadn't noticed the way the game is played these days, when the ball never leaves the ground, that's good.
Games like this are why the Mets traded for Mike Hampton last winter, even though it cost them Octavio Dotel and Roger Cedeno, even though they knew he had one year left on his contract and they might just be leasing him for a season.
"That trade was already worth it, even before tonight," said Mets GM Steve Phillips. "It was the right trade for the New York Mets at that time. You don't often get opportunities to get to the postseason. So does getting there again and getting this far again justify the trade? No question.
"The thing we saw last year," Phillips added, "is that starting pitching is so critical if you can use it to dominate in a short series. We didn't match up well with our starting pitching last year. I think (Masato) Yoshii started the first game of the playoffs in Arizona. Nothing against him, but Mike Hampton is a premier starter. And that's one big thing you have to have this time of year."
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The all-important Game 1
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The opening-game winner of each of the last seven NLCS has gone to win the series. Below is a rundown of each series:
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Year
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Gm 1 winner
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Series result
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2000
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Mets
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---
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1999
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Braves
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W, 4-2
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1998
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Padres
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W, 4-2
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1997
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Marlins
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W, 4-2
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1996
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Braves
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W, 4-3
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1995
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Braves
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W, 4-0
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1993
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Phillies
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W, 4-2
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1992
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Braves
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W, 4-3
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Before Hampton, only three other Mets had ever made a postseason start of seven innings or longer without allowing a run. One was Bobby Jones, just last Sunday in Game 4 against the Giants. The other two were Ron Darling, in Game 4 of the 1986 World Series, and Jon Matlack, in Game 2 of the '73 NLCS.
You may have noticed the Mets won all of those series. If they keep pitching the way they have in this postseason, they'll win this one, too.
Before Armando Benitez gave up two unearned runs in the ninth, they'd thrown 26 straight shutout innings in the playoffs, dating back to Game 3 of the Giants series.
Now on Thursday, they get to send Al Leiter, another dominating left-hander, out to face a Cardinals team that went 17-23 in games started by left-handers this season. But as unhittable as Leiter can be, particularly for left-handed hitters (who batted .118 against him), one thing he knows he can't duplicate is The Look that Hampton takes to the mound with him.
"He looks like he's ready for battle," Leiter said. "Just the way he wears his cap. He pulls it way down so you can hardly see his eyes. I call it the Hillbilly Stan look, the way he curves his hat. I think he uses it to give him kind of a tunnel vision."
"Aw, that's just the way I am," Hampton retorted. "I hear it all the time from him. He calls me a redneck and a crazy coot, all that stuff. But I notice I've even got him bending his a little bit. I look at Leiter and (John) Franco and (Dennis) Cook wearing their bills straight across, and I'm working on them. I've gotta get them a little style, man."
Well, if that's what it takes to keep Hampton with the Mets beyond this month, curling their caps seems like a small price to pay. But of course, it will take a few dollar bills stuffed in those caps, too.
Much as Hampton seems to have warmed to his year in New York, his friends still expect him to bail out for a more Hillbilly Stan-friendly locale after the season. His first choice is said to be Atlanta. But St. Louis and Houston are also thought to be on his radar screen.
And by the way, after Wednesday night, the price didn't exactly plummet.
"I'm not worried about that," said Phillips. "I hope he pitches like that the rest of the way. And I'll worry about the contract later."
Hampton shut down negotiations on an extension in spring training. And he won't open for business again until next month.
"I've talked to his agent," Phillips said, "but not about money. Just basically to say, 'Hey, how's it going?' One thing we agreed on was that after a good start, he wouldn't call me, and after a bad start, I wouldn't call him."
Good thing, or the phone would have been ringing off the hook around midnight.
But the Mets have seen more than just a guy on a contract drive. They've seen a pitcher who understands himself and understands how to win.
"I knew before he got here he was a good athlete," Phillips said. "And I knew the competitiveness was there. But the one thing I've seen is that he never gives in. He's even willing to put runners on base if that's what it takes to find the right situation to make the right pitch. He'll put himself in trouble at times, just so he can face the right hitter in the right spot. He's a very heady player."
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger stalking through the wilderness, Hampton doesn't mind a little trouble once in a while -- because he knows he can get himself out of it with one more groundball. And it's a good thing he feels that way, because in this game, he had more trouble to squirm his way out of than Nash Bridges.
The Cardinals brought 10 hitters to the plate to face him with runners in scoring position Wednesday. None of them got a hit (0-for-9, with a first-inning walk to Will Clark). And that's a testament to Hampton's ability to save a big pitch for every big occasion.
"He's a tough guy to catch, because he never gives in to the hitter, even when he's in a jam," said Mike Piazza, who went the entire Division Series without an RBI, then collected one on his first swing of the NLCS (on a first-inning RBI double). "He always feels like he's one pitch away from getting out of it."
But with two outs in the seventh inning, with the score 3-0 and two Cardinals on base, that one pitch almost left the park. With what turned out to be his final pitch of the night, Hampton left a cutter out over the plate to Jim Edmonds. And Edmonds mashed it toward the 372 sign in left-center.
Back went Benny Agbayani. And back. And back some more. But finally, he hauled it in on the warning track, as Edmonds hopped up and down in agony. And that sound you heard whooshing by your window was Mike Hampton exhaling.
Asked afterward to describe his feelings as that baseball hung in the autumn night, Hampton replied: "I didn't breathe. I'll tell you that. I thought if I was going to breathe, it might have pushed the ball over the fence. But Benny gave me a pretty good deke. I just followed it the whole way. I just wanted that ball to come down so bad. Luckily, the park held it."
But this was one game Hampton didn't win just because of the park, or because of the 11 groundball outs he collected, or even with anything he did in the mound. He also won because he can hit.
He got 20 hits during the regular season and another one against the Giants last week. And in the fifth inning, he did something you'll never see, say, Kent Bottenfield do: He reached base on an infield single, hustling to beat out a grounder in the shortstop hole. He later came around to score the Mets' third run.
"I always run the ball out," he said. "I was taught that years ago. That was just something my dad stressed every time I didn't run one out. I got tired of getting yelled at, so I started running them out, and I never stopped."
Because of his love for swinging the bat, Hampton figures to stay in the National League. So that would figure to be one advantage the Mets have over the competition this winter. Those American League teams should be off his list.
"Hey, you never know," Phillips said. "That depends on how much somebody wants him. They might let him hit."
Asked if he'd considered letting Hampton play left field on nights he didn't pitch, Phillips replied: "We've thought about it. Maybe we should see if he can play short tomorrow."
Oh, probably not. But the Mets had better figure out something, because they not only have to worry about losing Hampton this winter. They have Rick Reed and Bobby Jones heading for the free-agent auction block, too. So there could be more of a sense of urgency for them this October than it might appear on the surface.
"I'm not worrying about that," said Leiter, the one guy in the postseason rotation who is signed for next year. "I just hope we win three more games here before they win four. And the rest of it is an issue for Steve Phillips and the front office to address after the season."
And address it they will, no doubt -- with their caps curled and their checkbooks poised.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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