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Schneider, Santana power Mets past Nationals

Sep 19, 2008 - 3:25 AM WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Brian Schneider homered twice and Johan Santana pitched seven strong innings as the New York Mets recorded a 7-2 triumph over the Washington Nationals on Thursday.

Entering the contest with just seven home runs, Schneider blasted solo shots in the second and fourth innings to fuel the Mets (85-67), who remained one-half game behind the first-place Philadelphia Phillies (86-67) in the National League East. The Phillies edged the Atlanta Braves, 4-3, on Thursday.

New York did extend its advantage in the NL wild card race to 1 1/2 games over the Milwaukee Brewers (84-69), who dropped a 7-6 decision in 12 innings to the Chicago Cubs on Thursday afternoon.

"It's important. You've got to give these pitchers some room, got to give them some support," Schneider said.

"We've scored a lot in the past. Obviously teams are going to go through a lull when you don't score as much, but when it's important to get a lead early, and it was good to do that again."

Santana (14-7) allowed one run and eight hits while striking out eight. The ace lefthander has not lost since June 28 - a span of 15 starts over nearly three months - but has picked up only seven victories in that span.

"It's very interesting what's going on right now. No one knows what's going to happen," Santana said. "You can predict whatever you want, but reality is what it is. Right now, we're in the pennant race and we still have - even though it doesn't look like too many games - a long way to go."

"Johan pitched extremely well. Anytime he got into trouble, he was able to work his way out of it. He looked good out there," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. "It was good that we gave him some run support, some of things we didn't do earlier in the year, and good for him to give us a win tonight. It was a very big win for us."

Former Met Lastings Milledge was quick to credit the powerful hurler.

"You pretty much know what you're going to get - the guy'll beat an All-Star team," Milledge said. "The guy's the best pitcher in the league."

Joe Smith and Scott Schoeneweis struggled to keep the pesky Nationals from rallying, but Pedro Feliciano came on to induce a game-ending double play.

Ryan Church had two hits and drove in a pair of runs for the Mets, who scored at least once in each of the first five innings en route to a 7-0 advantage.

Former Met Anderson Hernandez and Wil Nieves delivered run-scoring singles for Washington, which lost for the seventh time in nine games.

Tim Redding (10-10) allowed five runs and seven hits in three innings.

"(I) left too many balls over the middle of the plate," Redding said. "These guys are a momentum team. They get something going for them (and) they just feed off of it, from top to bottom.

"They're a good-hitting club and if you're not on top of your game, they're going to hit you around," Washington manager Manny Acta said. "I'm glad we're over with them so they can move on and play somebody else."