01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, October 27, 2004

BY JIM DONALDSON
Journal Sports Writer

ST. LOUIS -- Jeff Suppan's pitching was better than his base-running.

But that's not saying a whole lot.

Suppan's work on the mound wasn't good enough to win, and his work on the base paths was most definitely the kind that gets you beat.

"I screwed up," Suppan said in the quiet Cardinals' clubhouse after his glaring, base-running gaffe in the third inning took his team out of a potentially big inning.

St. Louis was trailing just 1-0 when Suppan led off the third against Pedro Martinez by beating out a dribbler down the third-base line. When Edgar Renteria followed with a double, sending Suppan to third, it seemed as if the Cardinals were about to make up for having failed to score when they had the bases loaded with only one out in the first.

Powerful Larry Walker was up next, and, with the Boston infield playing back, he hit a grounder to Mark Bellhorn at second base.

Suppan should have been running on contact. Instead, he hesitated, only heading toward home plate when Bellhorn threw to first. Suppan still was just halfway down the line when he saw David Ortiz look toward him. That prompted Suppan to reverse direction and try to get back to third.

He didn't make it, getting nailed by a crisp throw across the diamond from Ortiz, who was making a rare appearance in the field.

"It was bad base-running," Suppan said. "I don't know how else to describe it."

His teammates tried to make sure Suppan's mistake on the bases didn't lead to more mistakes on the mound.

"I had to put it behind me," he said. "I couldn't do anything about it. Guys were saying to me: 'Hey, it's over. Keep us in the game. We'll get 'em.' "

The Cards did not, however, get to Pedro after missing those prime scoring chances in the first and third innings.

Getting stronger the longer he went, Martinez retired the last 14 batters he faced. He threw seven shutout innings, giving up just three hits. He struck out six, including the last two batters in the seventh, and walked only two, both in the first inning.

"Pedro's a very good pitcher," said Suppan, "and he was pitching well. He's smart. He uses his stuff well. And he still can throw hard."

For his part, Suppan said he felt he had "good stuff."

"For the most part," he said, "I felt I kept the ball down in the strike zone."

He failed to keep the ball in the park facing Manny Ramirez in the first, yielding a long liner that landed in the left-field seats.

Then, after his bad base-running cost the Cards at least one run in the third, Suppan surrendered another run in the fourth, hanging a curve ball that Trot Nixon drove deep to right field to drive in Bill Mueller, who'd hit a two-out double.

When Suppan got in trouble again in the fifth, giving up two more runs, he was relieved by Al Reyes.

"They had some good at-bats against me," Suppan said of the Sox. "They don't chase bad pitches. They look for pitches in a certain zone."

It was small consolation to Suppan to recall that Boston, after falling behind the Yankees, three games to none, in the ALCS, came back to win the next four on the way to the pennant.

"We're a very good team," he said. "We played well all season. We're playing again tonight. It's not over."