Takahashi dominates as Mets beat Yankees, 4-0

As the Subway Series kicked off yet again, the recent themes of New York's teams remained firmly intact. The Mets are surging, the Yankees are slumping.

Beginning with their series against the Yankees at Citi Field a month ago, the Mets have been on the upswing, and Friday night, they showed off their newfound confidence in the Bronx. They won their eighth straight game, riding six scoreless innings by Hisanori Takahashi and timely hitting for a 4-0 win over the Yankees before 49,220 at Yankee Stadium.

The Mets have won 12 of 13 and 19 of 24. Because the Braves won and the Rays lost Friday night, the Mets remained a half-game behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East and the Yankees remained tied for first with Tampa Bay in the AL East. The Yankees still share the best record in baseball - but the balance of power in New York seems to be evening out.

"We're very confident right now," Jeff Francoeur said. "We're confident we're going to score runs and we're confident our pitchers are going to shut them down."

Phil Hughes opposes Mike Pelfrey Saturday afternoon, with the Yankees hoping their slumping bats awake in time to avoid losing another series to their crosstown rivals. They've scored only four runs in their last three games, going 17-for-100 in the process.

While Takahashi flourished on the mound, David Wright made game-changing plays on both offense and defense. He scored the game's first run in the first inning with an impressive headfirst slide in which he touched the back side of home plate with a hand and eluded Francisco Cervelli's tag by what he described as a "split second.''

Wright also made a key defensive play to end the sixth, barehanding Jorge Posada's chopper and throwing him out with the bases loaded. "Once it hit off the plate and it was one of those high choppers, I knew it was the bare hand or nothing," he said, "so I was fortunate the ball stuck and I could get it in and out."

Wright's play preserved Takahashi's strong pitching line. Four weeks after holding the Yankees scoreless in six innings in his first major-league start, Takahashi (6-2) did it again, this time allowing four hits and two walks. That gave him the edge on Yankees starter Javier Vazquez (6-6), who allowed a run and three hits in seven innings. He had given up no runs and one hit in six innings in his earlier battle with Takahashi.

After the two-out single by Ike Davis that drove in Wright in the first inning, Vazquez retired 14 of the next 15 Mets hitters. But Angel Pagan had a two-run double off Chan Ho Park in the eighth and Jose Reyes added an RBI single off Boone Logan in the ninth.

The Yankees loaded the bases with one out in the ninth on singles by Cervelli and Curtis Granderson off Raul Valdes and a walk by Brett Gardner off Francisco Rodriguez, but Rodriguez needed only four more pitches to end it. He struck out Derek Jeter and got Nick Swisher to pop up in foul territory to Wright, leaving the Yankees at 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position to the Mets' 4-for-9. The Yankees left 11 men on base.

It was easy for the Yankees to chalk up their struggles against Takahashi on May 21 to unfamiliarity with him, but they couldn't use that excuse Friday night. Using the same four-pitch arsenal that features a 20-mph variation on his fastball and curveball, he kept the Yankees guessing.

"You never got the feeling he was going to flinch," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. "He just stayed within the moment and pitched really well."

For the Yankees, it looked like a carbon copy of their previous two games, when they came up flat against Phillies starters Jamie Moyer and Kyle Kendrick. In the three games, they had three runs and 11 hits in 21 innings against the opponent's starting pitcher.

"This is a long season and you have to look at the big picture for us," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "We're 41-26. We're tied for first place. We haven't scored runs in three days. But at any time, that can turn around."