ROUGH OUTING

This game meant everything. Nolan Ryan hadn't beaten the New York Mets in eight consecutive starts. He'd never won a playoff game. But there was an even better reason for winning Game 5 of the 1986 National League Championship Series.

He thought it would put the Houston Astros in the World Series.

Ryan had done everything else he wanted. He had thrown five no- hitters, breaking Sandy Koufax's record of four. He had struck out 383 batters in a season, edging another Koufax record. He had struck out more than 4,000 batters, obliterating Walter Johnson's record.

All he wanted on Oct. 14, 1986 - after a season of misery because of a sore elbow - was one victory.

"I wanted to win that ballgame," he once said, "as much as any one I've ever pitched."

A victory over the Mets at Shea Stadium would have given the Astros a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. They would be going back to the Astrodome, where the Mets eventually would have to beat Mike Scott. Ryan considered the feat unlikely, especially with the Mets' preoccupation with Scott's handling of a baseball. The Astros would be in the World Series for sure, Ryan thought, perhaps to play against his old team, the California Angels.

The match-up would be perfect. Ryan wanted a World Series for Gene Autry, the Angels' owner and a friend. And he wanted one for himself. He hadn't been to a World Series since 1969, his second full season with the Mets.

He hadn't felt a vital part of that 1969 team, contributing as a reliever in the playoffs. He certainly didn't feel a kinship to the Mets 17 years later.

Going into the playoffs, Ryan had not beaten the Mets since May 6, 1984. Over that three-season span, he had five losses and two no- decisions. Then he lost Game 2 of the championship series, 5-1. He wasn't supposed to come back until Game 6. But a rainout gave Astros manager Hal Lanier, in his rookie season, the idea to move up Ryan and push back left-handed starter Jim Deshaies.

The Mets liked the idea.

"I think this is a plus for us, seeing Ryan again," third baseman Ray Knight said.

Knight's reasoning was because of the number of left-handed batters in the Mets' lineup (five of the first six in the order). But Ryan read more into the comment than lefty-righty percentage. He took particular notice of the sentiment of outfielder Len Dykstra, who said: "I think Mike Scott's the only one with a chance to beat us. I don't think Nolan can beat us."

Ryan hadn't done it in 1986. He lasted only five innings of a 3- 2 loss on May 7; made it through six of a 6-2 loss on May 15; got a no-decision in five innings of a 2-1 Astros loss on July 4, and gave up four runs in a 13-2 Mets bombing July 17.

The winless streak continued through Game 2 of the playoffs. He put down the Mets in order the first three innings. He struck out the side in the third. But, in the fourth and fifth, he gave up seven hits and five runs, including a two-run triple by Keith Hernandez.

"Why that is, I don't know," Ryan said after Game 2 of his problems with the Mets. "The Mets have a quality lineup. I guess I haven't pitched really well."

Looking back, Ryan believes he pitched as well as could be expected. He pitched all year with a torn ligament in his right elbow, the same elbow that required surgery in 1975.

The surgery removed bone chips. Dr. Frank Jobe, who thought the tear was complete, suggested surgery of the type that later would be performed on Ryan's teammate with the Rangers, Jose Canseco. Ryan declined, saying he was "too old and too late in my career."

"I learned to deal with it," Ryan said. "The first 10 minutes of warming up was all I could do to stand it. Then the first 100 pitches would be fine before it would start hurting again."

He went on the disabled list twice, June 2-24 and July 28-Aug. 12. The first time proved rest would not cure the ache, Ryan said, and doctors assured him it would do no further damage to pitch. But Dick Wagner, who had come from Cincinnati to replace Al Rosen as Astros general manager, decided Ryan needed another rest.

The second respite didn't do any good, either, Ryan said. His elbow still hurt. But, in his last 10 starts, he went 5-1 with a 2.31 earned run average. On Sept. 24, against the San Francisco Giants, he threw a one-hitter in eight innings, striking out 12. The 6-0 victory clinched a tie for the Western Division title. Scott won it for them the next day with a no-hitter.

Scott was one of several surprises for the Astros that year. Glenn Davis, in his first full season, hit 31 home runs and drove in 101, finishing second to the Phillies' Mike Schmidt as the NL Most Valuable Player. Lanier, in his first season, took a team that was predicted to lose 100 games and won 96.

Scott made the biggest impression, however. In parts of six seasons with the Mets and Astros, he had won 29 games. But, in his second year with the Astros, he won 18. He did it again in 1986, winning the Cy Young award and leading baseball in strikeouts with 306.

The difference was a split-finger fastball taught to him by the Giants' Roger Craig. The pitch - a terrific complement to his mid- 90s fastball - broke so sharply across the plate that batters believed it had to have been doctored.

The Mets said as much, anyway.

"If he doesn't cheat," said the Mets' Gary Carter, after striking out three times in Scott's 1-0 victory in Game 1, "my hat's off to him for being a great pitcher. Mike Scott has a secret, and it's a big advantage for him. It puts one more thing in the hitter's mind to worry about."

The Mets went so far as to collect 17 baseballs from the game and hand them over to National League president "Chub" Feeney. Mets manager Davey Johnson said he would take a lie-detector test to convince anyone that all the balls collected were Scott-scuffed.

Feeney declined the offer, waving the series on.

Scott wasn't the first Astros pitcher accused of scuffing, merely the best. Don Sutton's reputation preceded Scott's when the former played for the club in 1981 and 1982. He reportedly showed a few of his tricks to other Astros, including knuckleballer Joe Niekro, who, in later years, would be caught with a nail file on the mound.

A few Mets, notably Knight, even accused Ryan of putting a notch or two on the ball.

"Just because Don Sutton was an ex-teammate," Ryan said, denying all, "doesn't mean he had any lingering presence."

In his second autobiography, Ryan said he did not know of any scuffing that Scott did.

Does he still hold to that assertion?

"Yeah," he said, smiling, straining not to laugh.

Legal or not, whatever Scott was doing worked better against the Mets than anything Ryan did in 1986. Scott gave up only one run and eight hits in 18 innings against the Mets in the playoffs. Ryan wasn' t nearly as good as Scott in Game 2.

But he came close in Game 5.

"I felt like we needed to win that game," he said. "If we won that, we'd be in good shape."

Ryan seemed to do his part. He struck out eight of the first 12 batters he faced. He gave up two hits in nine innings, walked one and struck out 12. The only run he gave up was a home run by Darryl Strawberry in the fifth.

He pitched well despite a couple of distractions. The first came when first-base umpire Fred Brocklander called Craig Reynolds out at first on a double play, negating a run that would have crossed had he been called safe and would have given the Astros a victory in nine innings.

Replays indicated Reynolds was safe, though Brocklander stood by his call.

"If he said he saw the replay," Reynolds said, "then all I can say is he missed it twice."

Ryan had his own problems on the bases. He tried to break up a double play in the fifth and jammed his right heel into the bag. X- rays later would show a hairline fracture. But Ryan, his foot swelling, kept pitching. Mets second baseman Wally Backman, who struck out three times before scoring the winning run in the 12th inning off reliever Charlie Kerfeld, said Ryan was as good as Scott had been.

"When I struck out in the ninth," Backman said, "I couldn't have hit Nolan's pitch with a 4-by-4.

"He was just mowing us down."

Ryan was finished after nine, though, and the Astros were done a game later. Scott, who called Ryan's Game 5 performance "the best game I've ever seen pitched," didn't get another chance at the Mets. New York outlasted five Houston pitchers for a 7-6, 16-inning clincher in Game 6.

Ryan, noting the Mets' come-from-behind effort against Boston - which beat California in the AL playoffs - in the seven-game World Series, was not disappointed in his lot. He did not break his winless playoff streak. He shrugged. He said it clearly was the Mets' year, judging by Mookie Wilson's grounder through the legs of Boston's Bill Buckner in Game 6.

Ryan believes he met the standards of one of the biggest games of his life.

"I pitched well, and I felt like I did everything I could to help us win," he said. "I went against their best, (Dwight) Gooden, and did my part. It was just one of those days when we lost it out of the bullpen.

"You feel bad when you go out there and let the team down. You take those harder. This one, I didn't."