Murphy delivers as Mets win third in row

Knowing he couldn't change the past, Daniel Murphy focused on the future. Redemption was the last thing on his mind, he said. But in the end, it's exactly what he earned.

After making a costly error in the fourth inning, the second baseman drove in the go-ahead run in the sixth and an insurance run in the eighth to lead the Mets to a 6-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks after a 1-hour, 21-minute rain delay Saturday at Citi Field.

It was the Mets' third win in a row, tying their longest winning streak this season.

"The fact that I was able to kind of turn it around and put together two quality at-bats, personally, I feel like I didn't give in right there," said Murphy, hitting .583 (7-for-12) with runners in scoring position this season. "And as a team, we didn't."

With the score tied at 4 in the sixth inning, pinch hitter Justin Turner doubled and Murphy ripped a two-out single into right. Turner easily beat the offline throw of Justin Upton to give the Mets a 5-4 lead. With two outs in the eighth, Jose Reyes singled, reached second on reliever David Hernandez's balk and scored on Murphy's single to right.

"I didn't hit that ball great the last [at-bat]," Murphy said of his insurance RBI. "But it's a ball that today got through that maybe a week ago didn't."

For the first time in a long time, the lucky breaks are going the Mets' way and timely hitting no longer is an aberration. They totaled a season-high 15 hits, including 12 off Arizona starter Barry Enright (0-2), and all six runs were scored with two outs -- a statistic that greatly pleased manager Terry Collins.

"If you looked at what we went through 10 days ago, one of the things we were talking about in this [media] room is [getting] a two-out single once in a while with guys in scoring position," he said. "And today, we got those hits."

Jason Bay (three RBIs) and Ike Davis hit back-to-back homers in the third for the Mets (8-13). The last time the team accomplished the feat was last June 27, when David Wright and Davis got to Minnesota's Scott Baker.

"I wasn't coasting out of the box there, either, I was booking it," said Bay, who hit his first home run since June 28. "This place rarely gives you one of those ones where you can drop the bat and trot out of the box."

Davis became the first Met to go deep in three straight games since Wright did it last September. His solo homer landed in the Pepsi Porch.

Starter Dillon Gee (2-0) had a 4-1 lead in the fourth when he walked Stephen Drew with one out. Miguel Montero hit a grounder that could have resulted in a forceout at second or a double play, but the ball rolled underneath Murphy's glove for an error. Before the inning was over, Ryan Roberts and Gerardo Parra each contributed an RBI single, cutting the Mets' lead to 4-3. Both runers were unearned.

Murphy said he made a mistake by trying to turn two on Montero's grounder.

"I may have cost [Gee] an inning right there, and more than that, I cost us a couple runs," he said. "It's a situation that he shouldn't have been put in, and I'll take it and I'll learn from it."

The Diamondbacks (8-11) tied the score at 4 in the sixth on a mammoth home run by Montero that landed on the Shea Bridge in right-center. But Murphy's clutch hitting saved the day for the Mets.

Said general manager Sandy Alderson, "He's developing into a nice player, if everything continues."