With last night’s rainout, the playoffs between the Mets and Cardinals take on a new life.  Throw away the last four games, they are now meaningless and the reason is both teams are tied at two games each.  It really doesn’t matter how both teams got to where they are except perhaps to give some insight on how they will perform over the next three games.  The fact is the team that wins two games of the next three is going to the World Series.  It’s the only baseball action right now.  The American League is all set with the Tigers lying around in their den licking their chops waiting for either New York or St. Louis to win the National League crown. 

The good news for the Mets is that by winning on Sunday night, they insured a return to Shea Stadium, certainly one of the more intimidating places to play for opponents.  The series will be decided there; champagne to celebrate the National League pennant will be sprayed and consumed there.  The only question will be is what locker room will the corks be popped.

The Mets have the home field advantage because the potential exists that two of the three games will be played in New York.  However, tonight’s game in St. Louis becomes a very important game for the Mets.  Tom Glavine is the Mets ace, plain and simple.  He has pitched thirteen scoreless innings in the playoffs and has won two games, one in each series.  Next to Glavine the only other pitcher to get into the fifth inning was Oliver Perez who did it Sunday night in a gusty performance.  And it still took the Mets fire powered lineup to insure a victory.  

The ideal situation for the Mets is to win tonight with their best pitcher on the mound then they would only need to win one more game at Shea Stadium.  The Mets should be able to use the formula that has won so many games in the playoffs to this point. The Mets need to get a few innings from a starting pitcher then hail the bullpen.  Winning tonight will not necessarily be a cakewalk.  Many have suggested that the Mets benefited from the rainout because Glavine will now pitch on his normal rest and the bullpen has been able to rest too.  Well the Cardinals weren’t out there playing in the rain yesterday by themselves so they have also rested.  The Cardinals bullpen needed a break especially after the abuse they took from the Mets bats on Sunday.  

Don’t forget, Jeff Weaver pitched well in the series opener.  He made one mistake; with two out in the sixth inning, Lo Duca singled to right then Beltran hit that bomb into the scoreboard.  He came out of the game after that but if it wasn’t for Glavine’s shutout performance, maybe those two runs wouldn’t have meant much.  The point is that just because Glavine is on the mound tonight; don’t assume the Mets just have to throw their gloves on the field.  This will be a tough game, no doubt.

Can the Mets win a two of three series?  They should, including the regular season the Mets are now 6-4 against St. Louis.  The Mets had a .599 winning percentage for the season so if you go by the numbers two out of three is the norm.  But anything can happen with only three games left.  Certainly the Mets weakness right now is their starting rotation.  After Glavine pitches tonight, the Mets send John Maine back to the mound in game six.  Maine has not been able to get to the fifth inning in either game he has started against the Dodgers and the Cardinals.  He’ll be going against the Cardinal’s ace Chris Carpenter again.  The Mets had their chance against Carpenter in game two scoring four runs early but Maine gave those runs right back.  To me that was the reason the Mets lost game two.  If it goes seven games, who starts for the Mets?  Steve Trachsel, based on what he has done so far?  The scuttlebutt is that Darren Oliver could get the nod, but let me point out that we don’t really know if Oliver can handle the pressure of winning a game seven.  Sure he looked great mopping up for Trachsel but there really was no pressure.  That game was over in the second inning. 

The best bet for the Mets is to win this thing in six games, that means win the next two.  In order for that to happen, Glavine must pitch effectively tonight and the Mets bats must continue where they left off on Sunday.  The Mets hitters must continue to have good at bats by working the Cardinal pitchers into hitter’s counts.  It certainly would be a fine time for David Wright to break out and provide some help to Beltran and Delgado.  Hopefully the home run Wright hit on Sunday will help him to relax and stay within himself.  Sometimes Wright tries to do too much, a symptom of a young hitter.

You have to like the Mets chances in the series if they can win tonight.  It would be hard to believe that the Mets would not be able to win at least one game at Shea Stadium, especially in front of their home crowd.  However, although the series will continue even if they lose tonight, it could be tough for the Mets to win two in a row without the help from their ace Tom Glavine. 

It looks as if the Mets have received good news.  El-Duque Hernandez feels good; he’s throwing in the bullpen without pain in his injured calf and desperately wants to participate in the Mets post season.  Wouldn’t it be nice to see Orlando start game one of the World Series in Detroit?  For that to happen, the Mets have first got much work to do.  They must at least play 18 out of 27 innings of winning baseball. 

Extra Innings:  Last night’s rain out was the second postponement of the series.  The last time a Mets post season game was postponed was game three of the 1988 NLCS against the Dodgers at Shea Stadium.  It was to have been played on a Friday but was rained out.  The Mets then played five games in five days losing to the Dodgers in seven.  Then of course there was the rainout of game seven of the 1986 World Series.  The game was to have been played on a Sunday evening, the night after the famous game six come from behind win.  It rained all day and the game was called around 7:00PM and rescheduled for the next evening, Monday, October 27.  The Mets won that game of course and became the World Champions of baseball for the second time in Mets history. 

All remaining NLCS games will start at 8:19PM.