Delgado's hit puts Mets alone in 1st

A while back, I wrote a post about how Carlos Delgado might find himself in a platoon situation with Andy Phillips if he didn't start to hit soon. Well, here we are on the 24th day of July, and the Mets are alone in first place for the first time since April 19th, thanks to a big two-run double by Carlos that gave the Mets a 3-1 victory over Philly this afternoon.

Delgado came to the plate in the bottom of the eighth with the scored tied at one. The Mets got their run to that point in the bottom of the 3rd thanks to a David Wright single that scored Jose Reyes who walked and stole second earlier in the inning. The Phillies got their run to that point in the top of the 7th thanks to a home run by Right Fielder Jayson Werth to center field.

Delgado hit a two-strike pitch from J.C. Romero with two outs into the left-field corner to drive in Pinch Hitter Robinson Cancel, who singled and David Wright, who was intentionally walked earlier in the inning. Left-handed hitters were 5-for-68 (.074) against Romero this season before Delgado's clutch hit, which made the slugger 3-for-18 lifetime against the Phillies' reliever.

With the score 3-1 Billy Wagner came in and recorded his 26th save of the season. With the win, New York improved to 9-4 against the Phillies this year, after going 6-12 against them last season, losing the final eight meetings.

Not to be lost in this discussion is today's performance by Oliver Perez. Since Dan Warthen took over as pitching coach, Ollie has been lights out. Today was no different. Even though Aaron Heilman got the win, Perez shined. He struck out 12 in seven and two-thirds innings, while only giving up the Werth home run, which was one of six hits he surrendered while walking only one. Before the Werth home run, Ollie had a 24 and 1/3 inning scoreless streak against Philadelphia. The Werth home run was just the fourth earned run allowed by Perez in his last four starts.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. As for Andy Phillips, he's back with the Reds; the place where the Mets got him from. I don't think Delgado has to worry about platooning anymore.