No win for Pelfrey, but he's happy

"I'm like, 'Let's go celebrate,' " Pelfrey said after the Mets' 5-4 win. "I turned around and started walking, and people started screaming behind me. I didn't even see it and I said, 'Oh, my gosh.' Somebody told me they were doing the same thing in the dugout.

"That's the way it works, but luckily we were able to come back in the bottom half and take the lead again."

Pelfrey still doesn't have a decision after three starts despite tossing eight innings, the most by a Mets starter through the first 14 games.

He allowed one run, six hits and one walk, striking out three, and had good command of all his pitches, including his splitter.

Pelfrey threw 102 pitches -- 67 for strikes -- before manager Terry Collins decided to take him out. Collins said he simply didn't want to send Pelfrey back out to the mound in the ninth because if he surrendered a run, he was going to insert closer Frank Francisco anyway.

"He's a big, strong guy," Collins said. "I know he could have gone back out. I told him on the bench, if we score an extra run, you are going back out there, and he was fine with it. I said but otherwise I'm going to the guy that we've got to save games.

"Even though he didn't get the win today, he pitched like the Mike Pelfrey we know he can be, and I want that feeling to last. I don't want that feeling of, 'Hey, he gave up two runs and now I've got to go get him.' All of a sudden, they tie the game up and it's like, 'Why didn't you have the closer in the game?' I didn't want that to happen to him."

Pelfrey said he would love to have finished it but didn't have any problem with Collins' move.

"Ultimately, it's his decision, and I don't really want to come out of any game," Pelfrey said. "If it's the sixth, whatever, and he comes over and he tells me I'm done, I say, 'Hey I want to keep going.' So the situation doesn't matter and at the end, we ended up winning, and that's great. That's what it's all about."