With This Loss, Mets Truly Are Fit to Be Tied

The New York Mets dropped back into a tie in the National League wild-card race, blowing a three-run lead and losing to the Montreal Expos, 5-3, Tuesday night at New York.

The Expos’ Orlando Cabrera had a tiebreaking two-run single in the sixth inning that ricocheted off pitcher Dennis Cook.

“It’s down to a four-game season,” New York closer John Franco said.

The Mets, trying to qualify for postseason play for the first time since 1988, are tied again with the Chicago Cubs, who won at Milwaukee.

“We had the luxury of losing one game, but you don’t want to do that,” said John Olerud, who tied an NL record by reaching base for the 15th consecutive time before making an out in the third inning. “We have some tough games coming up with Atlanta.”

New York finishes its two-game series with the Expos today, then concludes the regular season with three games against the Braves at Atlanta. The Cubs play the Brewers again today, then close with a three-game series at Houston.

If the Mets and Cubs tie, they’ll meet Monday in New York for a one-game playoff.

Montreal trailed, 3-0, in the third against Armando Reynoso (7-2) but tied it on Derrick May’s leadoff homer, Wilton Guerrero’s RBI triple and Terry Jones’ run-scoring groundout.

Then in the sixth, Michael Barrett doubled leading off, Vladimir Guerrero walked and Cook relieved.

After loading the bases with a walk to Brad Fullmer, Cook threw a called third strike past Bob Henley and got May on a soft pop to shortstop. Cabrera then hit a comebacker that bounced off Cook’s back and went high over second baseman Carlos Baerga into short right-center field as two runs scored.

San Francisco 14, Pittsburgh 2--Barry Bonds homered, tripled and singled before leaving because of back spasms at San Francisco.

San Francisco closed to within 2 1/2 games of New York and Chicago, the co-leaders in the NL wild-card chase, with five games left.

Bonds, who drove in three runs, walked in the fifth but appeared to strain his back when he checked his swing on the last pitch.

Arizona 8, Colorado 6--Colorado’s Mike Lansing hit three home runs and drove in four runs, but Arizona’s Karim Garcia homered twice and drove in three runs as the Diamondbacks won at Denver.

Devon White, Kelly Stinnett and Travis Lee added homers for the Diamondbacks, who matched a franchise-high with five home runs.

Atlanta 4, Florida 1--Eddie Perez’s solo home run at Miami gave the Braves 208 homers this season, breaking a 32-year-old franchise record.

Kevin Millwood (17-8) earned the victory, giving up one run and six hits in five innings. Kerry Ligtenberg pitched a perfect ninth and became the first National League rookie to earn 30 saves since St. Louis’ Todd Worrell in 1986.

Philadelphia 10, Cincinnati 8--Cincinnati reliever Todd Williams walked three batters in the 11th inning to force in the go-ahead run as the Phillies won at Cincinnati.