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Late offensive burst leads Pirates past Mets

Jun 2, 2011 - 5:18 AM Flushing, NY (Sports Network) - Lyle Overbay and Xavier Paul both finished with two hits and drove in two, helping the Pirates rally late for a 9-3 victory over the Mets at Citi Field.

Andrew McCutchen added three hits and scored the first of Pittsburgh's five runs in the seventh inning. The Pirates tacked on four more in the eighth to turn the game into a rout.

The offensive bursts helped Kevin Correia (8-4), who became the major league's first eight-game winner after allowing two runs in six innings. He gave up six hits, walked two and struck out four for Pittsburgh, which has won two of the first three in this four-game series.

"In all my starts we've done well," Correia said. "I've never felt that urgency to throw a shutout every time. I knew we were hitting the ball hard and I knew if I could hang in there long enough we would get the win."

Mets starter Chris Capuano (3-6) was responsible for five runs in six-plus innings and took the loss.

Justin Turner hit New York's first home run in 11 games, but it wasn't nearly enough to prevent the Mets from falling to 2-4 on their 10-game homestand.

Turner hit the blast in the bottom of the eighth, by which time the Pirates had already blown the game apart. They did so with an improbable run of infield hits and close plays, fueling their rallies -- particularly the seventh-inning one -- with kindling.

McCutchen led off the seventh by sending a ball to first base and beating the throw, and Neil Walker followed by reaching on a bunt to third. Matt Diaz's soft grounder to Capuano resulted in another non-out, loading the bases.

Chris Snyder then grounded a ball toward the hole at short, and Ruben Tejada opted to throw to third base. But Willie Harris caught the ball as he ran backward to the base and didn't get his foot on the bag or tag Walker, leaving everybody safe and pulling the Pirates within 2-1.

The next batter was Overbay, who sent a fly ball to center. Angel Pagan was close to making the catch but had the ball glance off the tip of his glove, allowing another run to score.

Capuano was pulled after that at-bat and the Mets brought in Pedro Beato, who struck out Ronny Cedeno.

However, Paul pinch-hit for Correia and continued the comedy of errors by sending an RBI single to right. The ball landed only several feet in front of Carlos Beltran, and Diaz raced home to put Pittsburgh in front 3-2.

Harris tried to get the Mets out of the inning during the next at-bat, when Jose Tabata sent a grounder to third. Instead of going home for the force out, Harris attempted to start a double play by throwing to second. But Tabata beat the throw to first and Snyder scored.

Josh Harrison's run-scoring single to short extended the Pirates' lead to 5-2 before Beato at last ended the inning with a strikeout of McCutchen.

The inning left Mets manager Terry Collins frustrated and fed up. He didn't blame Capuano for Pittsburgh's rally, but his club's inability to make plays.

"I'm running out of ideas, here. Do we play hard? Absolutely. That's not the issue," Collins said. "It's about execution."

It only got worse for New York. Walker led off the eighth with a walk before scoring on Brandon Wood's double. Overbay and Paul hit RBI singles later in the inning, and pinch-hitter Garrett Jones had a sacrifice fly.

The Mets weren't able to match the offensive output. Aside from Turner's homer, Tejada plated two in the fourth inning by fisting a ball over second baseman Walker's head with the bases loaded. But New York went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position overall.

Game Notes

Pirates starters have gone 13 consecutive games without giving up more than two earned runs...Correia leads the majors in road victories (7)...Pittsburgh picked up the 9,600th win in franchise history...The Mets had gone 10 games without a homer, their longest stretch since August 27-September 13, 1980, when they went a franchise-record 17 games without one...Daniel Murphy hit New York's last homer before Wednesday, a solo blast May 20 against the Yankees.