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Mets beat Pirates in 10, 9-8

BY ANTHONY RIEBER | anthony.rieber@newsday.com

5:41 PM EDT, July 2, 2009

PITTSBURGH - The Mets suspected Thursday's one-day make-up game trip to Pittsburgh was going to be a little odd once they arrived at their hotel on Wednesday night and saw grown men and women in fury animal costumes. Lots of them.

It seems the Mets arrived from Milwaukee at the same time as a convention of people who like to dress up from head to hoof as cuddly critters. "Anthrocon 2009" just happened to begin on the same day as the Mets-Pirates matinee makeup of a June 3 rainout.

Up to 4,000 "furries" were expected to roam around Pittsburgh all weekend, jamming the hotels and restaurants and clogging shower drains with their excess fur. Speaking of fur . . . you can expect it to fly starting Friday night in Philadelphia when the Mets visit the Phillies.

But first the Mets had their wacky one-day excursion to Pennsylvania's other big city. It included two rain delays, a nearly empty stadium, a comeback from a five-run deficit, a blown save by Francisco Rodriguez and, finally, a 9-8, 10-inning win.

Ryan Church's two-out, 10th-inning single to center scored Fernando Tatis, who had been hit by a pitch and doubled over in pain for the second time in the game. Tatis (3-for-3, double, home run) stole second and scored on Church's hit off Matt Capps (1-4) when rookie centerfielder Andrew McCutchen fired the ball all the way to the backstop.

Rodriguez came in to protect an 8-6 lead and promptly served up an infield single to Freddy Sanchez and a two-run home run to right-center to Adam LaRoche for his third blown save in 24 chances.

K-Rod gave up two two-out singles after the home run and was only spared a loss when Brandon Moss lined to Luis Castillo to send the game into extra innings. With Bobby Parnell the only reliever left, Rodriguez (2-2) stayed on for the bottom of the 10th and retired the Pirates in order.

It was LaRoche who got into a brief verbal spat with Carlos Beltran after the Mets' last trip here. Beltran said the Mets should have been "embarrassed" for losing three in a row to the Pirates. LaRoche said the comments showed Beltran had "zero class."

Beltran, who is on the disabled list, did not make this trip.

The Mets fell behind 5-0 as the Pirates KO'd Tim Redding after 2 1/3 innings. But the Mets stormed ahead 6-5 with two in the fourth and four in the fifth.

Not only did manager Jerry Manuel have to go to his bullpen in the third inning, but he also started using pinch hitters in the fourth. He was rewarded when Daniel Murphy stroked a two-out, two-run single off Paul Maholm to make it 5-2 and Jeremy Reed hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the next inning as the Mets batted around.

The game was delayed twice by rain, for 30 minutes before the first pitch and for 43 minutes after two batters in the top of the first. Redding was forced to warm up twice.

Pittsburgh scored three in the second and two in the third to chase him and force Manuel to use his bullpen for 5 2/3 innings on the eve of a series at Citizens Bank Park never a good idea.

The Phillies have struggled almost as badly as the Mets and have allowed the Marlins and Braves to get back into the NL East race. The Phillies are a mind-blowing 13-22 at home.

"I think everybody in our division . . . at this point has still got to feel pretty good about their chances," Manuel said. "I just see the [Phillies'] struggles, and say, 'Hey, OK, we've still got a shot.' We lost of lot of games in the month of June and still somehow got a shot."

Friday's pitching matchup favors the Mets. Steady Livan Hernandez will face 33-year-old righthander Rodrigo Lopez, who hasn't pitched in the majors since 2007. Fernando