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Carlos Beltran, Nick Evans and David Wright each hit solo homers and Pedro Martinez settled in after giving up two first-inning runs as the Mets beat the Florida Marlins 6-3 Sunday.
The Mets added three insurance runs in the seventh on RBI singles by Jose Reyes and Ryan Church and a sacrifice fly by Carlos Beltran. Reyes extended his hitting streak to 11 games, and Evans’ third-inning shot was his first Major League home run.
Martinez again lost his no-hitter on the leadoff batter – the fifth time this month – advancing our NoNoHitters.com count to 7,457 games without a no-hitter. His slow start led to two first-inning Marlins runs, but he settled in for the next five innings and at least he didn’t give up a leadoff homer.
Martinez served up opening-hit homers on Aug. 1, Aug. 6 and Aug. 21, yielded a leadoff double on Tuesday and allowed an opening single on Sunday. (See our No-hitters killed by first at bat page for more details on leadoff hits.) A typical Mets’ season sees 19 leadoff hits. We’ve already had 36 this year, and we haven’t even reached September.
The Mets tapped heavily into their bullpen, using Scott Schoeneweis, Aaron Heilman, Pedro Feliciano, Joe Smith and Brian Stokes to finish out the game. Reyes helped out Stokes with a diving run-saving grab with two outs in the ninth.
Additional help arrives tomorrow when Major League rosters expand to 40 players.
