The Ex Files Too Scary for Dodgers : Baseball: Piazza homers, Hershiser goes eight strong innings and Cedeno robs Sheffield in Mets’ 3-1 victory.

Ever wonder what might have been for the Dodgers if they had been a little wiser, a little more far-sighted and a little more generous?

If you were at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night, you need wonder no longer.

It wasn’t a great night for the Dodgers, but it was a wonderful evening for three former Dodgers, who came back to haunt their former club.

Wearing the gray road uniforms of the New York Mets, they returned to the old familiar dirt and grass of Dodger Stadium to lead their team to a 3-1 victory, gaining sweet vindication against their former team.

On the mound was Orel Hershiser, improving to 13-10 with a vintage eight-inning, two-hit effort a week shy of his 41st birthday that brought back memories of the magical fall of 1988 when he led the Dodgers to a World Series championship.

Surely you remember Hershiser, who was deemed by former general manager Fred Claire to be the odd man out in the pitching rotation after the 1994 season. That was a reasonable assumption at the time considering that Hershiser, having suffered through shoulder surgery, hadn’t had a winning season in three years, but the Dodgers could use him now.

At the plate Thursday night with a man on in the sixth inning was catcher Mike Piazza, who, after fouling off four pitches in a duel with Dodger starter and loser Kevin Brown (16-7), smashed a 2-2 pitch halfway up the left-field pavilion for his 34th home run, pushing the Mets into a 2-1 lead and giving New York all the margin it would need to win its fifth game in six outings, improving its overall mark to 86-55.

Surely you remember Piazza, who was deemed too expensive by Dodger President Bob Graziano and the Fox Group executives. Piazza’s contract demands a year ago resulted in the seven-player blockbuster trade that sent Piazza to the Florida Marlins and sent the Dodgers into a downward spiral from which they have yet to recover. Thursday night’s loss dropped the team’s record to 65-75.

In right field for the Mets was Roger Cedeno. It was he who made a key play on Gary Sheffield in the seventh inning to preserve the Mets’ lead.

Sheffield had already reached the seats once Thursday night, having hit a 1-1 pitch from Hershiser over the left-field wall in the first inning to give him 24 home runs and the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

Leading off the seventh, Sheffield was looking for more. And it appeared he had a repeat of his first-inning feat when he hit a ball deep to right. But Cedeno stretched his glove over the wall to pull the ball back in.

Surely you remember Cedeno, who was deemed expendable last winter by General Manager Kevin Malone when he needed to make a deal for catcher Todd Hundley to make up for the loss of Piazza. One of the knocks on Cedeno was that he was a defensive liability.

The Mets got an insurance run in the ninth when pinch-hitter Benny Agbayani doubled to left and pinch-hitter Jay Payton blooped a double to left to collect his first major league RBI.

Armando Benitez came on in relief of Hershiser, who had thrown 94 pitches, to pick up his 19th save, but he had to work for it.

With one out, Benitez walked Eric Young and, with two out, Benitez walked Sheffield. That brought up Eric Karros, the team’s RBI leader, but the Dodger first baseman took a called third strike to end the game.

“It was a lot of fun,” Hershiser said. “It was kind of a magical night.”

It had to be a pleasing night for Piazza as well, but he wasn’t about to gloat over his former team. Instead, Piazza chose to praise Brown.

“Obviously he is a tough, tough pitcher,” Piazza said. “I got a pitch to drive, a little more up than he would have liked it.”

Brown was on a seven-game winning streak culminating in his first shutout of the season last Saturday in Chicago. His earned-run average over his previous nine starts was 1.68.

“Brownie had nasty stuff,” Dodger Manager Davey Johnson said. “That one to Piazza, he crushed it. Up and out over the plate. That’s how he likes it. He still pitched a great game.”

But Thursday night, Hershiser was just a little bit better.

And he too refused to gloat.

“They are in transition,” he said of the Dodgers. “They made big plans. They had big talent. It just didn’t work out.”