Mets complete road sweep over Phillies

PHILADELPHIA -- Mets manager Terry Collins sent out a lineup against Cliff Lee Wednesday night that looked more like Port St. Lucie in March than Citizens Bank Park in May.

But Collins insisted he wasn't conceding anything after having won the first two games of this series.

"We're playing tonight to win," Collins said.

And they did. Big.

The Mets completed their first road sweep of the Phillies since 2006 with a rousing, come-from-behind 10-6 victory.

The Mets' fifth win in a row was also their 11th comeback victory. At 18-13, the Mets are five games over .500 for the first time this season and are one-half game out of first place in the NL East behind co-leaders Washington and Atlanta.

For the second straight night, the Mets rallied in the seventh inning against the last-place Phillies (14-18). Phillies manager Charlie Manuel held a closed-door meeting after the game to tell his players "we've got to wake up and play better."

Trailing 4-2, the Mets scored three in the seventh to take the lead and four in the eighth to pull away. Lucas Duda had the go-ahead RBI when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Ike Davis completed the barrage with a three-run homer.

The Mets scored one run with three hits in the first five innings. They scored nine runs with nine hits in the final four.

"I don't want to get caught up in the attitude that let's wait until the sixth, seventh, eighth inning to go," David Wright said. "But it's nice to be able to come from behind and steal a few. Or in this case, steal three."

The Mets have swept two series this season in which they trailed in each game. The first time was last month against the Marlins. They hadn't done it at all before that since 2000. And they also swept a series with two of the games started by Lee and Roy Halladay.

"It's exciting," Davis said. "No one believed in us. I hope they don't still. We're just going to continue to play hard."

Collins sat Duda and Kirk Nieuwenhuis against Lee, who was making his first start since April 18. Lee, who had been on the disabled list because of a strained oblique, was pulled after six innings and 84 pitches, which didn't hurt the Mets' chances to rally.

The lineup had Scott Hairston batting cleanup and Vinny Rottino fifth in his first major-league start. Justin Turner started at shortstop for the injured Ruben Tejada and Rob Johnson was the catcher instead of the injured Josh Thole.

Nieuwenhuis started the go-ahead rally with a walk batting for Rottino to lead off the seventh against Kyle Kendrick (0-3). Turner hit an RBI double to make it 4-3. Davis then doubled off the rightfield wall. Turner, who had held to see if the ball would be caught, made it only to third. Kendrick walked Johnson to load the bases and then hit pinch hitter Duda to drive in the tying run. Andres Torres' fielder's choice to second gave the Mets a 5-4 lead.

Manuel decided to leave Kendrick in for a second inning. It wasn't any better than the first. Wright and Hairston hit back-to-back doubles to make it 6-4 before Manuel removed Kendrick to the sarcastic cheers of the hometown fans.

Kendrick faced nine batters and retired just two.

It got worse for the Phillies when Hunter Pence dropped a routine fly ball hit by Turner to right for an error before Davis smacked a three-run homer to right-center against Jose Contreras for a 9-4 Mets lead. Torres, who tripled and scored in the sixth, hit his first home run as a Met leading off the ninth.