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Glavine celebrates anniversary of debut with win

Aug 18, 2007 - 4:16 AM WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Tom Glavine celebrated the 20-year anniversary of his major-league debut with another strong performance.

Glavine threw seven solid innings to earn career win No. 301 and Moises Alou homered as the New York Mets posted a 6-2 victory over the Washington Nationals on Friday.

Glavine helped the Mets rebound from a disheartening loss to Pittsburgh in which the bullpen blew leads of 5-0 and 7-3 on Thursday.

"It means a lot because we needed it," he said. "We really needed it tonight. It was psychologically a tough loss yesterday. You hate losing games like that, losing big leads. I wanted to go deep in the game and give the guys in the bullpen a break tonight. That was my goal."

Damion Easley homered and scored twice for New York (68-53), which has won 18 of its last 23 visits here and leads the Philadelphia Phillies (65-56) by three games and the Atlanta Braves (64-58) by 4 1/2 in the National League East Division.

"I'm just trying to help the team win a ballgame," Easley said. "So far, so good."

"He's extremely valuable to this team," Glavine said. "He can play a bunch of different positions and is a true professional. He always gives everything he's got."

Glavine(11-6), who made his major league debut on August 17, 1987 for the Braves, limited the Nationals to one run and eight hits while notching a season-high six strikeouts en route to his first win since getting No. 300 against the Chicago Cubs on August 5.

"Tom did an outstanding job for us tonight," Met manager Willie Randolph said. "He's a leader, and that is what leaders do."

The 41-year-old lefthander went 2-4 in his first season and led the league in losses the following year. However, since then, he has done nothing but win, posting four 20-win seasons and earning a pair of Cy Young Awards.

In this one, the future Hall of Famer got some early support from Easley, who was playing first base in place of Carlos Delgado. Delgado missed his second straight game with a hyperextended left knee.

Easley did his best impression of Delgado, blasting a homer - his 10th of the season - to left-center field off Washington rookie starter Matt Chico (5-7) to lead off the second inning and put the Mets up, 1-0.

"I certainly don't have his (Delgado's) power," Easley said.

New York doubled the lead in the third as Jose Reyes led off with a walk and stole second before scoring on a single to left-center by David Wright.

"I just try to put pressure on the other team," said Reyes, who leads the majors with 62 steals.

After Dmitri Young halved the deficit to 2-1 with an RBI double in the third, Alou blasted his fifth homer in seven games - a solo shot to left field that landed just out of the reach of a leaping Ryan Church.

Easley followed with a walk and advanced to third on a single by Shawn Green. Mike DiFelice then plated Easley with a sacrifice fly to left, extending the Mets' lead to 4-1.

That was enough for Glavine, who allowed just one extra-base hit and remained unbeaten in his last seven starts.

"Glavine threw the ball so well tonight, we just try to make the plays for him," Reyes said.

DiFelice stretched the lead to 6-1 with a two-run triple to right in the eighth, as the Mets took advantage of nine walks issued by Washington pitchers to improve to a major league-best 26-14 in series openers.

Jorge Sosa got the first out of the eighth before giving way to Pedro Feliciano, who worked the final 1 1/3 innings.

Ryan Zimmerman had three hits for Washington, which lost for just the third time in 12 games here.