GAME 2

Cardinals 9

Mets 6

On a full count, Billy Wagner fired a 96-mph fastball in the ninth inning of a tie game last night.

It was blasted out by So Taguchi.

Taguchi, a Cardinals reserve outfielder, led off the top of the ninth against Wagner with a 375-foot homer into the left-field bullpen, a dramatic shot that propelled St. Louis to a 9-6 comeback Game 2 victory over the Mets at Shea Sta dium, and tied the best- of-seven NLCS at 1-1.

Taguchi, who came into the game in left field in the eighth, had two homers this season, though he hit another one in the NLDS against the Padres.

Wagner gave up two more runs in the ninth, getting booed after Juan En carnacion’s RBI single brought in the final one. Wagner also was booed off the mound after get ting pulled with two outs.

“It’s tough,” Wagner said. “We had our chances and I let it get away.”

The Mets had a two- run lead in the seventh, but Guillermo Mota coughed it up.

“We kind of let that one slip away, but we have to come back [tonight],” Willie Randolph said. “We’ll get back at it [tonight] and pick up a ‘W.’ But we’ve had much bigger challenges than this and we always respond. We’ve responded all year. I don’t think we’re going to change now.”

Prior to last night, the Mets had been unbeaten in four playoff games and had trailed in only three of their 36 playoff innings. They’ll play nine more tonight in St. Louis in Game 3, with Steve Trachsel going against Jeff Suppan in a critical contest.

As the Mets did in Game 1 of the NLDS, they carried a lead into the seventh but had Mota blow it. That game, which they won, was a three-run cushion; last night was a two-run bulge.

Up 6-4 last night in the seventh, Mota gave up a two-out single to Albert Pujols and walked Jim Edmonds. Scott Spiezio, playing third base for ailing Scott Rolen, then tripled to right, the ball hitting off Shawn Green’s glove and off the right-field wall to tie the game at 6-6.

“I felt like I had a shot and I obviously did because it hit the glove,” Green said. “But when you’re going up against the wall and there’s a lot of variables, you hit the wall and you try to time everything. It just didn’t work out, unfortunately, and it cost us a couple runs, but at least that last run didn’t score on the call being overturned.”

The umpires gathered afterward to determine if the ball was a homer. But Spiezio had to stay at third and was stranded there when Aaron Heilman got Encarnacion to ground out to end the inning.

Taguchi later went deep, and now has homers in both of his playoff at-bats this year.

“I can’t explain it. It’s unbelievable,” he said. “Who expected that I would hit a home run? Maybe nobody, even me.”

The Mets had crushed Cards ace Chris Carpenter before that, racking up five runs on six hits.

Carlos Delgado, who’s having a marvelous postseason, cracked two homers off Carpenter, giving him three homers in the playoffs. He blasted a three-run shot in the first inning, then with the game tied 4-4 in the fifth, added a solo one to put the Mets ahead again.

Delgado’s two blasts accounted for the first multi-homer playoff game by a Met since Game 1 of the 1999 NLDS, when Edgardo Alfonzo went deep twice against Arizona.