St. Louis ? Anthony Reyes fared a lot better than the last St. Louis rookie pitcher to start a playoff game. Anybody remember Rick Ankiel?

The real problem Sunday night was a suddenly impotent St. Louis bullpen that couldn’t get anybody out. The result was 12-5 Game 4 loss to the New York Mets that tied the series at two games apiece.

“It was a rough night, especially the two right-handers,” manager Tony La Russa said. “They’re kicking themselves and beating themselves up in the clubhouse.”

Reyes left after four innings in a tie game, and the Cardinals’ relievers – who had allowed one run in 202â3 innings all postseason – were knocked around for nine runs in the next two innings.

“We’ll get back on the saddle tomorrow,” Tyler Johnson said. “It didn’t crush our confidence at all. They’ve got a lot of good hitters over there and sometimes they get the better of you, but tomorrow it’s not going to happen.”

The game was out of hand before the Cardinals, who are 24-36 against left-handed starters this year counting three playoff games, finally got to Mets starter Oliver Perez. David Eckstein homered off Perez in the fifth, and Jim Edmonds and Yadier Molina added two more in the sixth.

The Mets scored three runs in the fifth off Brad Thompson, aided by second baseman Ronnie Belliard’s fielding error that contributed to one earned run. They tacked on six more in the sixth, five of them charged to Josh Hancock, who didn’t get an out.

“The thing just opened up for them,” Hancock said. “It happened quick. We make mistakes, they hit them.”

Carlos Delgado hit a three-run homer in the fifth and a two-run double in the sixth off right-handed relievers, victimizing Thompson in the fifth and Hancock in the sixth.

“Both of those right-handers have been effective against left-handed hitters and that’s a lot of game to pitch,” La Russa said. “They can get all of those guys out making good pitches.”

Entering the game, it appeared that the Mets’ bullpen was the vulnerable one, given that starters the previous two games totaled five innings.

The Cardinals’ bullpen was successful before Game 4 despite a lack of experience. Closer Jason Isringhausen had hip surgery in October and three of the relievers, including fill-in closer Adam Wainwright, are rookies.

Reyes, making his postseason debut, was super stingy by comparison.

The Cardinals picked the 24-year-old rookie over wildly inconsistent Jason Marquis, who had a 6.02 earned-run average and was left off the NLCS roster, to start Game 4. Control problems limited Reyes to four innings, during which he threw 86 pitches.

“I tried to treat it just like another day, and it definitely worked,” Reyes said. “I wasn’t too nervous and I felt pretty good.

“I thought that helped me out a little bit.”

Reyes’ initial playoff experience was nothing like Ankiel in 2000.

Ankiel was one of the top young pitchers in the major leagues before coming unglued in the postseason that year. In Game 1 of the division series Ankiel became the first pitcher since 1890 to throw five wild pitches in one inning, and finished the postseason with nine wild pitches.