Pagan leads Mets' hit parade, backing Niese

CLEVELAND - Jon Niese wasn't close to perfect, but the Mets didn't need him to be. Their offense continued to mash its mediocre opponents last night, delivering six consecutive hits at one point to produce a sixth consecutive win.

"Hitting is contagious. Sometimes it goes the other way, when a couple guys are struggling and it rubs off on everyone else," David Wright said after the 8-4 win over the Indians. "When you have guys going well, it definitely rubs off."

Every Mets starter had at least one hit. Angel Pagan led the way with three hits and three RBIs, including a two-out, two-run single in the sixth inning to restore a five-run lead.

Wright extended his NL RBI lead to 52 with two more knocked in, giving him 13 RBIs in his last six games. And the team as a whole kept building on its momentum, scoring five runs in the third and three more in the sixth to put away the Indians.

"It's a lot easier to pitch when the team's scoring runs for you," said Niese (4-2), who allowed three runs and eight hits in seven innings.

The other key number for Niese was 43 - the number of tickets he left for friends and family who made the 21/2-hour drive from Defiance, his hometown, here to Progressive Field.

Following up on his one-hit masterpiece last week would have been difficult regardless of the circumstances, but Niese had a hole to dig out of last night.

That was a literal problem: Niese had trouble with a hole in the landing spot on the mound, something that Nationals rookie phenom Stephen Strasburg struggled with in his Progressive Field start on Sunday.

"I got out there for the first inning and I was like, 'Whoa,'" Niese said. "They fixed it a little, but it was just getting deeper and deeper as the game went on."

Niese allowed a two-run homer in the fourth to Shelley Duncan, the first runs Niese had allowed in 131/3 innings. But by then, his team had staked him to a 5-0 lead with a parade of six straight hits, including four straight doubles by Pagan, Wright, Ike Davis and Jason Bay, to put the Indians and Mitch Talbot (7-5) in a pretty deep hole.

Pagan then iced the game with his two-run single off Talbot in the sixth after the Indians had cut the deficit to 5-3. Pagan is 20-for-54 (.370) with runners in scoring position. "I'm seeing a lot of fastballs, so it's good to be there," Pagan said of hitting in the No. 2 spot. "Every time [Jose] Reyes is on base, I'm going to see a lot of fastballs. I'm getting good pitches to hit."

The only sore spot was Bay leaving with a bruised left quad after he beat out an infield single in the second and his leg collided with Andy Marte as Bay hit the bag.

Not much is slowing the Mets, who have won 10 of 11 and can record their second straight road sweep Thursday night after starting this trip 8-18 away from Citi Field.

"When everyone's chipping in, it makes everybody's job that much easier," Bay said. "We were grinding it out to get a run every inning or so before. Now we're building things, gaining some momentum."