Gee wins 10th; Mets take fifth in a row

WASHINGTON -- Even after selling off Francisco Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran, the Mets are buying into the concept of making a run at the wild card regardless of the long odds facing them.

"Yeah, I think we consider ourselves in a race," Terry Collins said Friday afternoon. "We know we're fighting for something. It gives you something to play for every night."

So the Mets did Friday night what contenders are supposed to do: They rolled over the Nationals, a seemingly inferior club, for their fifth straight win, an 8-5 victory on a sweltering night (101 degrees at first pitch) at Nationals Park. The Mets (55-51) moved four games above .500 for the first time this season.

As for scoreboard-watching, Jason Bay said: "I think it's a little early. But to come back and win five straight, why not us? We might not feel like we're the best team in baseball, but we feel like we're a very good team."

Dillon Gee (10-3) allowed four hits and three runs in 62/3 innings to become the 10th rookie in franchise history to reach double-digit wins. Hisanori Takahashi did it a year ago, ending a 25-year wait since Rick Aguilera accomplished the feat.

"It's nice," Gee said. "But like I've said before, wins and losses come and go. On a night like this, the hitters are why we won."

It helped that the Mets jumped to a 6-0 lead off former Yankee Chien-Ming Wang, who made his Nationals debut on the two-year anniversary of surgery to repair a torn shoulder capsule. It was his first major-league start since the operation.

Johan Santana is attempting to return from a similar operation performed last September, and the Mets are hoping for a faster timetable. Wang, who twice won 19 games with the Yankees, surrendered eight hits and six runs -- four earned -- in four innings and was removed after 60 pitches. That paved the way for the Nationals' sixth straight loss.

Jose Reyes had two RBIs and David Wright, with two singles, extended his hitting streak to eight games since his return from the disabled list. Wright is batting .459 with 10 runs scored and 12 RBIs in that stretch.

The Mets still burned through three relievers in the eighth when Bobby Parnell allowed three one-out singles and had to be replaced by Tim Byrdak. Ultimately, D.J. Carrasco finished the job, striking out Danny Espinosa and Ryan Zimmerman with the bases loaded. Zimmerman complained that he checked his swing, but plate umpire Dale Scott refused to appeal.

"I was running off the field before he could change his mind," Carrasco said.

Jason Isringhausen pitched a perfect ninth for save No. 298. He's converted all five of his save opportunities since taking over as closer.

"Jason pitched great, but [the eighth] is where the game was saved right there," Collins said. "That was a huge outing for us."

Wang opened the game with a four-pitch walk to Reyes and the next four batters all reached on singles. Daniel Murphy and Angel Pagan had run-scoring singles, Bay drove in another with a groundout and Lucas Duda finished the rally with a sacrifice fly.

Wang, whose velocity reached 93 mph, retired six of the next seven after that bumpy first before the Nats' defense betrayed him in the fourth. After Bay's leadoff single, Duda slapped a routine grounder to Espinosa, who kicked the ball around long enough to allow the lumbering Duda to reach first base.

Ronny Paulino followed with a single to rightfield, and when Jayson Werth failed to scoop it cleanly, Rick Ankiel grabbed the ball and fired a strike to the plate to nail Bay. But Gee picked him up with a run-scoring single and Reyes added a sacrifice fly to put the Mets ahead 6-0.

"We can't just sit here and play out the season because we made a trade," Wright said. "We have to go out there and try to win. If you win, good things will happen."