Mets 9, Reds 2

It figures that Kris Benson would pick the day when the Mets didn't really need a good pitching performance that much to give them one. With a little help from the Reds' defense, the Mets smacked Paul Wilson around while Benson held the Reds offense in check. And it all added up to the team's largest margin of victory in almost a month.

Jose Reyes started things off for the Mets with a stand up triple and scored on a sacrifice fly. Then Cliff Floyd blasted his league-leading eleventh home run of the season and the Mets were already up two after one. Two more runs in the second put the Mets up four to one and from that point on, things were never really in doubt. In the end the Mets had thirteen hits, six for extra bases, and two walks, both by Floyd. David Wright had a pair of doubles and Kazuo Matsui and Mike Piazza each had one. All three of them had two hits on the night, as did Reyes.

Meanwhile, Kris Benson's third start of the season was clearly his best. First of all, it was his longest, as he went seven and two-thirds innings on 112 pitches, allaying concerns about his durability. And he was quite effective along the way. He only allowed four hits and two walks and he struck out eight. Benson's still got to work on his consistency and prove that he can be more than just adequate over a full season, but he looked good tonight. And there are some good early indicators, like his 17:4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18 1/3 innings. If it weren't for the four home runs he gave up in his last start, he'd have very impressive peripheral statistics overall.

Tomorrow, Kazuhisa Ishii (0-2, 4.82) will make his return to the Mets' rotation. No roster moves have been announced yet (aside from Mike DiFelice replacing the DLed Ramon Castro), but right now things don't look good for Aaron Heilman. Ramon Ortiz (1-1, 6.75) will go for the Reds.  ¶ joe | 10:59 PM |