Giants tap Mets 5-1

SAN FRANCISCO - Barry Bonds is tired of talking about his postseason struggles. Maybe this will be the year the Giants slugger gets the last word.

Livan Hernandez held the Mets to five hits over 7 2-3 innings and Bonds fought back his playoff demons with an RBI triple and a key single as San Francisco beat New York 5-1 Wednesday in the opener of their NL division series.

Ellis Burks hit a three-run homer as the Giants gave both manager Dusty Baker and Pacific Bell Park their first postseason wins.

''(Bonds) was very focused and determined and poised,'' Baker said. ''He just played his normal game. ... He hit the ball good three times, and he got a couple of hits. It was just a Barry Bonds-type game.''

For Bonds, the three-time MVP whose career has been defined by regular-season prowess and postseason problems, his 2-for-3 performance was an early answer to his critics. He hit .200 in four previous trips to the playoffs, but he had the fourth multi-hit playoff game of his career to lead San Francisco's offense.

After the game, Bonds eschewed a trip to the postgame interview room and answered only a few questions at his locker before leaving with his young son. He blames the media for blowing his postseason struggles out of proportion.

''I don't want to get into the past. That's history,'' Bonds said. ''We're starting over here.''

Bonds couldn't have imagined a new start much better than this. His two-out triple - which came after he took a close 2-2 pitch - during San Francisco's four-run third inning ricocheted crazily off the wall in right, scoring Bill Mueller and setting the table for Burks' three-run homer.

Bonds also singled in the first to keep a rally going. He even stole second base after being walked in the seventh inning Wednesday.

''You guys should stop dwelling about the past with Barry,'' Jeff Kent said. ''This is a new team and a new year.''

The Giants, whose 97 regular season victories were the most in baseball, won in their first postseason game at Pac Bell, which opened in April.

The new park even played a role in the victory: Bonds' triple took that fortuitous bounce off a low wall in right, while Burks' homer hit the foul pole in left.

''When you see 41,000 people in the stadium, and you see it all year, it's great,'' Hernandez said. ''This is a great stadium. The fans here are very good, very loud.''

Hernandez wasn't dominant, but he picked up where he left off in the postseason three years ago. Hernandez, the NLCS and World Series MVP in 1997 while leading the Florida Marlins to the title, retired the Mets' first seven hitters and pitched out of two jams, allowing his only run on a sacrifice fly in the third.

''He did what we thought he would do,'' Mets manager Bobby Valentine said. ''He used his changeup and breaking ball and slider when he got behind.''

Hernandez improved to 5-0 lifetime in the postseason, the same mark as his older half-brother, Orlando, of the New York Yankees. On Monday night, with the Yankees in Oakland for the AL playoffs, Livan and El Duque got together for dinner.

''When you go to the playoffs, you've got to play hard,'' Hernandez said. ''A lot of players play 15, 20 years waiting for this chance. When I go out, I say, 'I want to throw good, I want to win my game.'''

Hernandez struck out five and walked five, but he got into trouble in the eighth, allowing a single by Edgardo Alfonzo and walking Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile. Baker brought in top setup man Felix Rodriguez, who struck out Darryl Hamilton amid raucous cheers.

Robb Nen closed out the Mets in the ninth.

It was the Giants' first playoff victory in eight seasons under Baker, twice the NL Manager of the Year. The Giants, whose 97 regular season victories were the most in baseball, won in their first postseason game at Pac Bell, which opened in April.

In the third, Kent walked following Bonds' triple. Burks then hit a long drive to left that clanged off the pole.

Asked if he felt like Carlton Fisk, whose famous extra-inning homer down the line at Fenway Park won Game 6 of the 1976 World Series, Burks said: ''Definitely. Everything but the body language.''

Burks' homer, his first in postseason play since 1993, sent the Pac Bell crowd into a frenzy. He made a curtain call moments later.

While all of the Giants' stars lived up to their billing, New York's most important players didn't.

Mets starter Mike Hampton, 9-0 previously against the Giants, couldn't get out of the sixth inning. He allowed six hits and five runs and walked three, and reliever Turk Wendell bailed him out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth with two strikeouts.

''It just boils down to I made basically one mistake, and it cost me,'' Hampton said. ''I'm not ashamed of anything. I pitched my best.''

Alfonzo, Piazza and Ventura - the Mets' 3-5 hitters - went hitless in their first nine at-bats. Piazza, a career .211 hitter in the playoffs, was 0-for-3.

The Mets' outfielders spent extra time Tuesday studying the eccentric dimensions of Pac Bell, but it didn't help right fielder Derek Bell. Bonds' triple caromed so sharply that Bell sprained his right ankle while trying to reverse direction.

He left the game for X-rays, which were negative. But Valentine said Bell, who was on crutches after the game, wouldn't play in Game 2 on Thursday night.

San Francisco scored first on Kent's RBI groundout after Bonds singled in the first inning. New York tied it up on Jay Payton's sacrifice fly in the third.

Notes:

Bonds also had two hits in games 5 and 6 of the 1992 NL championship series and in Game 2 of the 1997 NL division series. ... Game 2 is Thursday night, with left-hander Al Leiter pitching for New York against Shawn Estes.