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Delgado's second blast gives Mets win

May 30, 2007 - 4:40 AM FLUSHING, New York (Ticker) -- First Jose Reyes made Armando Benitez flinch. Then Carlos Delgado made him pay.

Delgado's second home run of the night in the 12th inning gave the New York Mets an improbable 4-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants in the opener of a three-game series on Tuesday.

Delgado drilled a 2-2 offering from Benitez (0-3) after the closer balked in the tying run when Jose Reyes made a quick move home, forcing Benitez to flinch.

"I don't try to steal home," Reyes said. "I just tried to put pressure on him and he balked."

Reyes kept the pressure on Benitez when he led off the 12th against Benitez with a walk and advanced to second on a balk. Reyes went to third on a sacrifice by Endy Chavez and danced off third, causing Benitez to lose his concentration and prompt a balk call.

"The first balk was called when he started his motion and stopped," said crew chief Randy Marsh. "The second one was when he got startled by Reyes and his knees buckled. They were both very cut and dry in my opinion."

Benitez disputed Marsh's interpretation, but the damage had been done. He tried to step off the mound to gain his composure, but the former Met never recovered.

"There's nothing you can do about, I lost the game," Benitez said. "I'll come back tomorrow and see what I can do."

That set the stage for Delgado, who lined a pitch over the right-center field fence for his fifth career walk-off homer, giving the Mets their fourth straight win. Delgado, however, insisted that Benitez was not rattled.

"That's not my problem," Delgado said. "He's been around a few years. It's not like (after the balks) his world is coming to an end."

Delgado has hit safely in six straight games and has hit four of his seven homers in the last three contests. The first baseman hit a pair of homers Saturday in Florida.

Randy Winn brought home the go-ahead run in the 12th inning off Joe Smith (1-0) on a groundout as the Giants took a 4-3 edge. Delgado had stepped on first on Winn's grounder to get the out, and that may have allowed Omar Vizquel to beat the throw home.

The Mets were robbed of a game-winning hit in the ninth, when Vizquel made a diving stop of a ground ball up the middle, forcing Paul Lo Duca at second and stranding David Wright, who led off the frame with a double off the top of the wall in right field.

"Omar is one of the best in the game," Mets manager Willie Randolph said. "I've seen him make plays like that for many years."

The Giants stranded runners on second and third in the 10th inning, before Wright lined out to center field with the bases juiced in the bottom half.

Oliver Perez of the Mets failed to win four straight starts for the first time in his career, but had another solid outing, allowing three runs and five hits in seven innings. The lefthander did not walk a batter and struck out eight.

Rookie Tim Lincecum, the Giants' top pitching prospect making his fifth major league start, was impressive again. The 22-year-old righthander lasted seven innings, allowing three runs and three hits with eight strikeouts. He has allowed just seven earned runs in his last four starts.

"There's a lot of history here," said Lincecum, a native of Bellevue, Washington making his first trip to New York. "I enjoyed coming here."

San Francisco has dropped four straight games.

The Giants led off a game with a home run for the first time this season, when Winn did it for the 12th time in his career. After Perez recorded two outs on deep fly balls, Bengie Molina homered to left field to extend his hitting streak to 10 games.

The hard-throwing Lincecum cruised through the early part of the game, retiring the first 11 batters. One of the outs was a strikeout of Carlos Beltran on a fastball clocked at 99 miles per hour.

Beltran was the first Met to reach base when he walked with two outs in the fourth. Delgado then continued his emergence from a season-long slump by belting a two-run homer to right field.

Reyes singled to lead off the sixth and came around to score when Beltran lined a double to right field to give the New York Mets a 3-2.

Perez had settled down after the shaky first inning, but gave the lead right back in the seventh when Daniel Ortmeier hit his first major league home run the opposite way to right field.

Barry Bonds, who hit his 746th career home run on Sunday and is nine shy of the all-time record held by Hank Aaron, did not start but walked as a pinch hitter in the 10th.