If Darryl Strawberry has been born again, so have the New York Mets.
The Mets, once built around the sleek but unreliable superstar, are learning that the memory of Strawberry is better than the reality of Strawberry.
The memory has something to do with a man who intimidated entire pitching staffs with towering home runs and awed baserunners with rifle-shot throws from the outfield.
The reality has to do with the man often criticized for his selfishness, who once began peeling off his uniform while his teammates were staging a ninth-inning rally in a pennant-race game in Wrigley Field. It has to do with a slugger whose shoulders weren`t broad enough to carry a team, not to mention a town as big as the Big Apple.
Love him or hate him, Gotham appears to be better off since the Los Angeles Dodgers gave the Straw a $20.5 million ticket home. The Mets team that the Cubs will encounter in three games here beginning Tuesday night still has the league`s best pitching, top to bottom. But it has become more aggressive and less beholden to Strawberry`s all-or-nothing style of hitting.
”I honestly think we`ll be better off without Darryl,” said Gregg Jefferies. ”Nothing against him, but we used to spend so much time waiting for Darryl. And when nothing would happen, we`d all think, `Why wasn`t I more aggressive in that situation?` or, `Why didn`t I take that extra base?`
”This season we`re not going to wait. You`re going to see a bunch of players who rely on each other.”
Such a statement might be expected from Jefferies, no favorite among his teammates. But team leader Howard Johnson echoed the thought.
”We`re more of a team now,” Johnson said. ”Everybody is expected to contribute.”
Strawberry certainly contributed during his eight years as Shea Stadium`s resident bombardier, though he was never able to meet the demands of the Mets` rabid followers. He hit 252 homers during that period, an average of 32 a year, and drove in 733 runs, about 92 a season.
By comparison, Andre Dawson has averaged 30 homers and 98 RBIs in his four full years on the North Side and has been showered with blind adoration. Strawberry`s advocates have a point when they say the Mets haven`t filled in the power gap created when he went west. Seven teams have lost their home- run leader without compensation since free agency began in 1972, and none followed up with even a division title. The most dramatic drop came in St. Louis after Jack Clark, another sulking star, left after the 1987 season. The pennant-defending Cards dropped all the way to fifth place.
Of course, the Mets haven`t had to worry about defending a pennant since 1986. The dynasty-in-the-making turned into the dynasty-in-the-unraveling almost overnight. New York has averaged 93 victories and never finished lower than second place since then. But this is a town with no patience for second- best.
So now the new-look Mets, led by free-agent acquisition Vince Coleman, rely on an attack that features the bunt single, the stolen base, the balk and the wild pitch.
The Mets were second in the league in steals with 51 after this weekend but were next to last in batting average (.235) and had been outscored by all but four National League teams.
With this sort of production, or lack thereof, the Mets have had to rely on their stalwart pitching, and it has responded well enough to give New York a 20-15 record, a record the so-so Cubs would kill for.
Through the weekend, the Mets led the league with a 2.76 earned-run average, and their pitchers had posted a league-high 216 strikeouts while allowing a league-low 18 home runs. The Mets also have walked only 85 men-not half as many as the Philadelphia Phillies have.
Only one man on the staff, Jeff Innis, has an ERA higher than 3.79. And few people in baseball have one lower than relief ace John Franco`s 0.69. Franco has seven saves.
Proof of the Mets` improvement came on the just-concluded 5-4 West Coast trip, the club`s first winning swing through California in three years. But the Mets had a chance to go home 7-2 and booted a pair of games to Strawberry and his Dodgers.
”It`s disappointing because (Saturday) we were sitting there looking at a sweep,” said David Cone, hung with Sunday`s defeat. ”And then to lose two the way we did . . . You`d still have to call it a good trip, but we had a chance to call it a great trip.”
