Mets 5 – Marlins 1

This was quintessential Mike Hampton yesterday. He beat Florida with his bat, robbed the Marlins with his glove and most of all smothered them with that golden left arm the Mets paid so heavily for. In short, his 5-1 win was the kind of slump-stopping, all-around performance the Amazin’s need from their ace.

Mike Piazza may be stolen some of the thunder with a sixth-inning grand slam, but Hampton was the hero of the day. He

bunted for an infield hit and scored all the way from first on a double for the game’s first run. He robbed the Marlins of hits at least twice and escaped a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam in the first en route to his first complete game of the year.

Hampton (4-4), who has given up just one run in his last 17 1/3 innings, earned his fourth win in five decisions and a standing ovation from the 36,162 fans at Shea. Not bad for a pitcher who lost his first three starts – badly – and needed some serious soul-searching less than two weeks ago. Consider the search successful.

“It was just what the doctor ordered. There was a little less walking around, a little less looking at the ball, and a lot more Mike Hampton competitiveness,” said Bobby Valentine. “You often see athletes compete against themselves. That takes away from how much they have against the [opponent].

“His last two outings, it seems like there’s only one guy he’s competing against, and that’s the one with the bat.”

In Hampton’s case, the seeds for his recent success were planted in a long walk in San Francisco. After giving up five runs in the Mets’ 13-8 loss at the Giants on May 3, he took a meandering walk back to the team hotel, sitting through a pair of

movies and, in a moment of self-examination, realizing the single biggest reason he’d seen his ERA bloat to 6.52.

“Me,” Hampton said simply. “I just got it in my head that this is just a game. There’s a lot of stuff in the world [tougher]. There’s 100 million people who’d love to be in my shoes. Sometimes you’ve just got to sit back and think about stuff. I don’t usually need a pep talk or pat on the head. Sometimes you’ve just got to come to grips with stuff and go forward.

“There are tougher things in life than struggling in a baseball game. Just go out there and do the best you can. You tell yourself that all the time, but you’ve gotta believe it; not harp on the bad, but take the positive.”

The positive is that Hampton, 4-1 with a 4.04 ERA after an 0-3, 6.59 start, is becoming the starter the Mets expected when they dealt away Octavio Dotel and Roger Cedeno. Still, at the outset yesterday, it appeared Hampton wouldn’t be able to stop the Mets’ skid, which included nine losses in 12 games.

Florida’s Mark Kotsay, Dave Berg and Kevin Millar opened the game with three straight singles to load the bases. But Joe McEwing – playing left in place of the released Rickey Henderson – charged Millar’s ball and made a strong throw to hold Kotsay at third, with the

heart of Florida’s order coming up. Hampton needed just nine pitches to escape the jam.

He used a full-count slider to fan Met-killer Preston Wilson, who had homered in a club-record four straight games, and then induced Derek Lee to hit a double-play grounder to Robin Ventura.

“He pulled himself up by his bootstraps,” Valentine said. “He wasn’t going to let it get away from him in the first inning.”

But Marlins rookie Brad Penny (3-5) was at least as good, holding the Mets to a single hit until the sixth. That’s when Hampton, who just missed a pinch-hit home run Saturday, saw Millar playing back at third and laid down a perfect bunt for a one-out single. And when McEwing lined a double past the third base bag, Hampton – an

all-state defensive back in Florida who got a football offer from FSU – came all the way around to score.

Derek Bell walked and stole second, and the Marlins intentionally walked Edgardo Alfonzo to set up a double play. It never came. Piazza reached out and smacked Penny’s thigh-high 1-1 pitch the other way into the Met bullpen for a grand slam and a 5-0 lead.

“That was probably my only good swing of the day. Fortunately, out of a dozen or so swings, I hit one that was pretty good,” Piazza said. “I didn’t think it was [gone]. It wasn’t the most graceful swing, but it got the job done.”