How well was Jeff Suppan throwing in the middle frames last night during Game 7 of the NLCS at Shea Stadium?

Good enough for Tony La Russa to allow the Cardinals right-hander bat for himself with two outs and the score tied 1-1 in the seventh against the Mets. And outside of the guy who always thinks the opposite just to be different, nobody second-guessed the move.

After all, Suppan held the Mets to a run and two hits through six innings with 88 pitches, and why waste a pinch-hitter to remove a pitcher who had been cruising? Of course, La Russa had hoped his anemic hitters – who he challenged before the game to compete more than he thought they did in Game 6 – would have provided Suppan a cushion to work with.

“We’re going to have to have better approaches and better results,” La Russa said. “You just can’t count on shutting these guys out again.”

Suppan didn’t blank the Mets, but he pitched well enough to have a big hand in the 3-1 Cardinals victory that punched their World Series ticket.

Suppan held the Mets scoreless across eight innings in Game 3 and was almost as good last night when he had to be in order to keep the visitors even.

When Suppan walked Carlos Beltran leading off the eighth, La Russa summoned lefty Randy Flores to face Carlos Delgado, who Suppan walked three straight times. Flores responded by fanning Delgado on a breaking ball in the dirt. Left in to face the right-handed hitting David Wright because the left-handed hitting Shawn Green was on deck, Flores fanned Wright and made sure Suppan didn’t get tagged with a tough defeat by inducing Green to ground out.

The run he gave up scored in the first when Carlos Beltran doubled to left with two outs, Delgado walked and Wright plunked a soft single down the right-field line that scored Beltran. Suppan stranded two by getting Green on a liner to left.

A throwing error by six-time Gold Glove winner Scott Rolen put Suppan in deep trouble in the sixth inning but he survived.