Delgado takes center stage in postseason debut

	RELATED • Mets get the jump on the Dodgers in Game 1 • Dodgers-Mets Game 1 Box Score

Carlos Delgado had played 1,711 major league games without a playoff appearance, perhaps not an eternity for a 34-year-old but certainly longer than a wait at the DMV. As afternoon faded into evening on this gorgeous Indian summer day, Delgado took more than a dozen years of highlights in the bigs and crammed them into three hours. The 470-foot home run in the fourth inning, that seemed to fly halfway to Manhattan, might be the highlight moment, or if you are turned on by game-winning hits, that double in the seventh that provided the New York Mets with the lead in an eventual 6-5 NLDS Game 1 win, was just as sublime.

In any case, a Delgado four-for-five, two runs-batted-in and two scored will look lovely for posterity.

Derek Who?

But the play that defined Delgado occurred, surprisingly enough, came with his thick legs. On David Wright's double in the sixth inning, Delgado, who between first and home became the No. 7 train come to life, kept chugging around third on the windmilled instructions of third base coach Manny Acta. He took a wide berth around Los Angeles catcher Russell Martin with a slide that carried him past the plate, which he would wind up touching with an outstretched hand.

If Delgado, and not Jose Reyes, is the Met who is beating them with his legs, the Dodgers might be in a spot of trouble.

Turning point

If you want to get real literal about it, the turning point came when the Dodgers' J.D. Drew rounded third in the second inning. The wacky double play, with two Dodgers being tagged out at the plate on the same Martin single, began with a fly off the base of the rightfield wall that Kent, on second base, failed to read well in the late afternoon shadow of Shea Stadium. Drew, on first, had no such problem and took off like a shot, following Kent by about 50 feet, like a 400-meter runner who is intent on making has up the stagger while rounding the curve. Shawn Green's relay to Jose Valentin was money, and Valentin wheeled and threw to the plate to nab the flummoxed Kent easily. While catcher Paul Lo Duca turned his back to display the ball to umpire John Hirschbeck, a little Statue of Liberty set-piece theatrics, Drew put his head down and kept steaming home. Lo Duca heard some of his teammates yelling spun and -- voila, Christmas morning. (Sometimes the outs just come to you, you don't have to go chasing the outs. Ohm.) This might be the only 9-4-2 double play on something other than a fly ball that you will see in your lifetime -- although something similar did occur to the Yankees in a 1985 in which Carlton Fisk tagged out a pair of runners at the plate. The Dodgers would have four straight hits in the inning, and later added a walk, and come away with one run.

From the bench

It got late early at Shea Stadium - the fifth inning - as Mets manager Willie Randolph decided to manage the first game of the playoffs as if it were the seventh game of the World Series. With a one-run lead and a runners on first and second, Randolph pretended it was, say, the eighth inning, dropping emergency Game 1 starter John Maine the way Vince dumped Jen -- or was it vice-versa? - and going right-left-right against some dangerous Dodgers hitters. Maine, a righty, exited after walking Rafael Furcal, yielding to a lefthander, Pedro Feliciano, who struck out his only hitter, Kenny Lofton. With two outs, Randolph marched to the mound again and summoned Chad Bradford, whose knuckles all but scrape third base when he delivers a pitch. Bradford induced a grounder to shortstop Reyes for a forceout. Maybe Randolph was running through his beefy bullpen quickly -- with 12 pitchers on the roster for the NLDS, Randolph could afford to then lift Bradford for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the inning -- but the sense of urgency ended the embryonic threat against a vulnerable rookie who had already thrown 80 pitches. Said Mets general manager Omar Minaya, "I was a little surprised."

Clubhouse Confidential

The Mets still were talking about the bizarre double play postgame, watching television replays and smirking. Green, the rightfielder, was asked if he should get two assists on the play. "I don't know," he replied. "You guys would know better than me." Green said he had seen a similar play twice -- once in baseball (presumably the Yankees and White Sox) and once in the film Major League. "You know, Willie Mays Hayes." Dodgers third base coach Rich Donnelly said he did not wave Drew on the play. "He didn't get a sign at all. I was just ready to throw my hands up. Then I heard the crowd. He must have seen something I didn't see. Then I said, Oh, s..."

Bottom Line

The Mets kept their battered rotation (no Pedro Martinez, no El Duque) in place by stealing a win against Derek Lowe, who had been all but immaculate in 2004 in winning the clinching games for the Red Sox in all three playoff series. Now the Dodgers turn to Hong-Chih Kuo who has had more Tommy John surgeries, two, than career victories, one. Of course the Mets scuffle mightily against lefthanders, including the Taiwanese pitcher, who stifled them in a previous outing at Shea. With the pressure ratcheted to New York levels, Kuo's stuff and savoir faire will have to carry the Dodgers.