Enright, DBacks beat Mets 3-2
Despite two surges in the eighth and ninth innings from New York, the Arizona Diamondbacks held off the Mets for a 3-2 win at Chase Field Tuesday night. Barry Enright had a quality start, going eight innings and giving up five hits on one run, while getting an RBI of his own in the third. The win gave the Diamondbacks their second straight win, marking their first win streak since late May gaining ground on the first-place San Diego Padres but are still 19 games behind in the NL West. The Mets lost ground in in the race for the NL East, where they trail the Atlanta Braves.
The low-scoring game was a pitchers duel, and Enright came out way on top. He retired 14 consecutive batters, starting in the first inning when he was faced with a one out, bases loaded situation. He struck out Ike Davis and Jason Bay to end the threat. The only run against Enright came in the top of the eighth, when Josh Thole hit his first career home run to lead off the inning. Enright's record is now 2-2 on the season.
"We have a great team here," Enright said. "To go out there and win a few close ones, get a blowout like yesterday and win today, hopefully we can string a few together."
All of the Diamondback's runs came in the first half of the game. Justin Upton hit a solo shot to center field in the bottom of the third. In the bottom of the fourth, Gerardo Parra tripled to score Chris Snyder from first. That's when Enright stepped up and got Parra home on an infield single, the winning run in the game.
"That ball was scorched," he joked.
Mets couldn't get much started
The Mets didn't get on the board until the eighth and added another home run in the ninth from Angel Pagan, but they could not string together hits to get any small ball scores in. They only had six hits all night and only drew one walk, which came in the first inning, the only inning in which they actually threatened.
Mets manager Jerry Manuel seemed disappointed in the lack of pop from his offence, as they went one for six with runners in scoring position.
"You kind of expect a little bit better output then we got today," he said.
They were lucky to get the pitching they did from starting pitcher R.A. Dickey, who went seven innings, giving up three runs on seven hits with two walks and three strikeouts. In Monday's game, the Mets had to use their bullpen for the majority of the game after their starter Mike Pelfrey went just one and a third innings and gave up six runs.
Dickey, now 6-4 on the year and winless in his last five starts, was happy with his performance despite the loss.
"I felt it was an outing that we fought tooth and nail and I gave our guys a chance to win," Dickey said.
Though Manuel wasn't proud of his team, he didn't take anything away from Enright.
"Maybe the young pitcher had something to do with it, too," Manuel said. "He threw some sharp breaking balls for strikes that we didn't seem to have a good feel for it. I believe that this lineup can get it done.
Diamondbacks string together wins
Tuesday night's win marked the first time new manager Kirk Gibson saw wins in consecutive games.
"We've played, in our last four games, very hard," he said. "We've pushed hard to get runs, keep pushing, keep pushing, getting contributions from many guys, and we feel we if can continue to do that we'll win some more games."
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