With the Braves looking to clinch the NL East and celebrate in the Mets’ own stadium – and the Amazin’s needing a sweep to stay alive for the division title – last night’s series opener should have had an electric feeling.
Guess again.
At its heart, this heavily hyped series felt nothing like the four-game set here in June. That series, split at two games apiece, crackled with electricity, fueled by Ku Klux Kloser John Rocker’s first trip to New York since his incendiary comments to a magazine, and a year’s worth of Mets’ seething over last year’s playoff loss.
This series? It may still turn out to be a classic, but at least from the Braves’ angle, it had the look of a snorer.
Maybe it was the drizzly, overcast weather and a half-filled Shea Stadium. Possibly Rocker just doesn’t command the same venom he once did. Or maybe it was the fact the Braves – who held the tie-breaker by winning the regular-season matchup _-needed only to avoid a sweep to take their ninth straight division title.
Either way, the results were the same.
“It’s not the same type of [atmosphere],” said Atlanta right-fielder Brian Jordan, a noted Met-killer. “It doesn’t feel the same. I mean, we have the same goals, just the [feel] is different.”
After the Braves beat up on Montreal, catcher Javy Lopez said that series had been more important than this one. And even though their magic number was three entering last night, by virtue of a better head-to-head record, the Braves knew one win in the series would seal the division.
The Mets, of course, had all but wrapped up the wild card. Can you say anticlimactic?
“Four games up with six left – it’s not a guarantee, but both teams know they’re in. I don’t think you’ll see the intensity of past [Met] series,” said Brave third baseman Chipper Jones, who has always had plenty of intensity against the Mets.
His four home runs in a heated three-game sweep of the Amazin’s last September all but locked up his first NL MVP Award. But the Braves admit the tone of this series may pale in comparison to that one.
“It’s been quiet,” said Brave pitcher Tom Glavine, who ensured his fifth 20-win season win a victory in Montreal on Monday night. And for Glavine, quiet translates to good.
He said the fact that the Rocker turmoil has calmed down makes for a calmer series.
“Everything we’ve talked about has been about baseball, and I think that’s what we want,” Glavine said. “We don’t want to talk about all that other garbage. It’s gotten a little quieter. And I think John’s pitching better, taken the focus off that and put it more on what we’ve done in the game.
“I haven’t heard very much leading up to us coming in here. It’s not hard to walk around the halls and see more security around. You notice that, but [it’s less]. The last time we were here, how many policemen were here was more of an issue than who scored how many runs and how many hits there were in the game.”
For his part, Rocker himself refused to speak. He’d told The Post last week he’d talk “five minutes after never,” and last night said “Never hasn’t gotten here yet.” But Glavine said the closer is another reason things have been quieter, since “He’s been more at ease, a little less confrontational.”
