Mets Bats Wake Up In Philadelphia

METS 7

PHILLIES 4

I guess the best tonic for the Mets woes this season is to play a game away from New York City. Why? Well, they can concentrate on hitting the baseball instead of concentrating on what their own fans think of them, which is not very good.

The Mets wasted no time in shelling former Met Chan Ho Park and the hated Philadelphia Phillies Friday night. Daniel Murphy blasted his second homer of the season, this one a two run shot to give the Mets the early 2-0 lead. In the second inning the Mets added on, something they have been having trouble doing all season long.

Ferando Tatis led off with a single; Omar Santos doubled to right to move Tatis to third, and Mike Pelfrey narrowly missed his first major league home run, a blast that went right in front of the left center field wall before Raul Ibanez hauled it in. The distance was enough to bring in Tatis with the third run of the game. Later, Jose Reyes' sacrifice fly brought in Santos to make it 4-0 Metropolitans.

Pelfrey shut down the Phillies through the game's first two innings but was touched up in the third. Ibanez's single to center drove in Chase Utley and Shane Victorino to cut the Mets lead to 5-2. Pedro Feliz followed with his own single to center to drive in Jayson Werth to make it 5-3.

But the Mets didn't put away the bats; with a run in and two men already on, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel decided to pull Park out of the game in favor of Chad Durbin. Big mistake. Pelfrey made Manuel pay by lacing a single to right to drive in Tatis to make it 7-3 Mets.

The Met bullpen, which imploded over the last few days against the Florida Marlins, settled down tonight. Pedro Feliciano had his best outing of the season, surrendering only one run in one and two-thirds innings. J.J. Putz was perfect in the eighth, and Francisco Rodriguez walked around a Chase Utley walk to close down the game, highlighted by a strikeout of Ryan Howard.

The Mets, who have really struggled against the Phillies in years past, needed to get this first one to instill some confidence in a team that played tired baseball in April. BOX SCORE. Now the challenge is to see whether or not Oliver Perez can get his head straightened out in tomorrow's start, first pitch at 4:10.