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Perez, Wright help Mets continue Penny's woes at Shea

Aug 25, 2007 - 3:46 AM By Doug Mittler PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

FLUSHING, New York (Ticker) - Oliver Perez and David Wright made for another long night for Brad Penny at Shea Stadium.

Perez pitched seven strong innings and David Wright homered and drove in a pair of runs as the New York Mets defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-2, in the opener of a three-game series Friday.

Ruben Gotay and Lastings Milledge added run-scoring hits for New York (72-55), which has a season-high six-game lead over Philadelphia (66-61) in the National League East Division.

The Dodgers (66-62) lost for just the third time in their last nine games to fall 3 1/2 behind the San Diego Padres (69-58) in the wild card race.

Penny, who is a candidate for the National League Cy Young Award, defeated the Mets twice this season in Los Angeles. However, the righthander fell to 1-9 lifetime at Shea, not including a loss in relief during the division series last October.

"I didn't have the command I wanted," Penny said. "With the stuff I had, it could have been worse."

Penny (14-4) did not pitch poorly, allowing three runs and six hits in six innings with four walks and two strikeouts. But he had little margin for error against Perez, who had struggled in recent starts.

"Every game is different," Perez said. "I just used my splitter a little bit more. I'm not a different pitcher (from my last few starts.)"

Perez (12-8), who had not completed the sixth inning in any of his last three starts, had his longest outing since beating the Dodgers in Los Angeles on July 20. The 25-year-old lefthander allowed just three hits and struck out six but struggled with his command by walking five.

"When he gets on a roll, he's pretty unhittable," Wright said.

The Dodgers loaded the bases in the first with the help of a pair of walks, but Perez struck out Andre Ethier and got Russell Martin to line out to right field.

"That game was summed up in the first inning when we had him on the ropes and nothing happened," Dodgers manager Grady Little said.

Los Angeles also wasted a leadoff double by Matt Kemp in the third.

The Dodgers loaded the bases with one out in the eighth against Jorge Sosa. Pedro Feliciano relieved and allowed a run-scoring groundout by Ramon Martinez before Shea Hillenbrand lined out to Wright to end the inning.

Closer Billy Wagner, who blew a save in Thursday's 9-8 loss to San Diego, loaded the bases in the ninth and allowed a sacrifice fly to Jeff Kent before getting the final out.

"If I was really bad, they would have scored four," Wagner said.

The Mets got on the board in the first as Gotay, who started at second base in place of an injured Luis Castillo, lined a double to right field that scored Jose Reyes for a 1-0 lead. Reyes scored on a single by Wright in the third to double the advantage.

Wright made it 3-0 in the fifth with his 23rd home run of the season, a one-out, opposite-field solo shot.

"You know on a 3-2 count his fastball is his best pitch," Wright said. "He put one over the plate."

Milledge had an RBI single and pinch hitter Marlon Anderson lifted a sacrifice fly in the eighth off Scott Proctor.