Mets sweep Indians for seventh straight

CLEVELAND - Jose Reyes' smile can tell you just how good things are going for the Mets.

Reyes flashed his big grin in the eighth inning at Progressive Field after he snatched Shelley Duncan's line drive out of the air. He had just made another great play to get Jhonny Peralta for the first out, and that came after his two-out triple brought in a huge insurance run in a 6-4 win over the Indians Thursday night.

The Mets head to the Bronx winners of six straight on the road, seven straight overall and 11 of 12.

"Right now, we can play with anybody in baseball," Reyes said after the Mets' second straight road sweep. "Everybody here is feeling good."

Reyes had a single, double and triple and is 17-for-39 (.436) in his last nine games. Ike Davis had two hits and two RBIs among the 14 Mets hits, eight of which came in the first two innings.

The Reyes-Angel Pagan 1-2 tandem is going so well that Indians manager Manny Acta intentionally walked Pagan to load the bases with one out to get to David Wright, who is tied with the Braves' Troy Glaus for the NL lead in RBIs with 53.

"I'll hit with the bases loaded and one out any day," said Wright, who beat out a double-play relay throw to give the Mets a 4-2 lead.

R.A. Dickey (5-0) became the first pitcher in Mets history to win five of his first six starts, going six capable innings with seven strikeouts, including two key ones on Austin Kearns and Russell Branyan in the fifth to keep the score at 5-3.

"I had a different knuckleball than I've had all year," Dickey said. "Dan [Warthen, the pitching coach] came out during that fifth and told me to go with the harder knuckleball, the one around 79-82.

"I just reared back and started throwing it. It really carried me those last three innings."

The lead dipped to 5-4 after seven innings, but Reyes rode to the rescue. He scored twice, giving him 18 runs scored in the last 23 games; it's not a coincidence that the Mets are 18-5 in that stretch. And he did it all after getting spiked on the right hand while diving back to second base in the first inning.

"He's the catalyst for our lineup," Wright said. "Usually when he goes, we go. The last couple weeks, it's just been fun to watch this lineup go."

Francisco Rodriguez nailed down the ninth inning, striking out rookie sensation Carlos Santana and Travis Hafner, both up as the tying run, to end it.

The Mets still are a half-game behind the Braves, but they are 10 games over .500, back into the sort of territory they haven't occupied since the end of the 2008 season.

Their road run has come against the Orioles and Indians, the two worst teams in the American League; starting tonight at Yankee Stadium, the next nine are against the first-place Yankees - against whom the Mets won two of three at Citi Field last month - the second-place Tigers and the first-place Twins. But the Mets feel as if they belong.

"We're getting ready to play some teams that are tough," manager Jerry Manuel said. "We're playing the world champions, and you've got to play good baseball. We feel like we're playing good baseball."