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Colon, Mets top Cardinals

Coverage of tonight's Cards and Pirates game can be heard on Newstalk 97.3 WTIM beginning at 6:40pm.

Flushing,  NY (SportsNetwork.com)  - Bartolo Colon tossed seven strong innings 
and  Daniel Murphy drove  in a pair of runs to lead the New York Mets over the 
St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1, in the finale of a four-game set at Citi Field. 

Colon  (2-3)  allowed just one run  on four hits  and struck out eight, as the 
Mets took three of four from the defending National League champions. 

Murphy ended 2-for-3 and Chris Young hit his first homer of the season for New 
York,  which has  won seven of 10 to  move two games above .500 for the season 
(12-10).  Eric Young Jr. scored two runs and Curtis Granderson showed signs of 
breaking out of a season-long slump with a key RBI for his new club. 

St. Louis starter Lance Lynn (4-1) was hit with the setback, marking his first 
career loss in March or April. The right-hander was charged with three runs -- 
two  earned --  on four hits in 6  1/3 innings of work. He struck out nine and 
walked  two,  falling to 12-1  in the  first two months  of the season for his 
career. 

With  the game tied  1-1, the Mets went ahead in the sixth when Murphy doubled 
home  Eric  Young, who led off  the inning by  reaching on a throwing error by 
Lynn that allowed him to advance to second base. 

"One  thing  that sticks  out to me  and sticks  out to our  guys is we're not 
playing  the  kind of baseball  that we  can play with  the things that we can 
control,  solid defense  and doing the little things right," Cardinals manager 
Mike Matheny said. 

New York added two more runs in the seventh. Anthony Recker started the inning 
with  a walk and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Ruben Tejada. Lynn was 
then  lifted  in favor  of reliever  Kevin Siegrest  to face the pinch-hitting 
Granderson,  who  lined a one-hopper  past Mark Ellis  at second base to score 
Recker. 

Granderson was thrown out trying to go to second on the play, but New York got 
another  run  when Eric  Young followed  with a triple  and scored on Murphy's 
bloop single to left for a 4-1 edge. 

The  ever-changing Mets  bullpen continued  to evolve  with Carlos  Torres and 
Scott  Rice combining  to get  out  of trouble  in the  eighth, while  Daisuke 
Matsuzaka worked the ninth for his first career major league save. 

Matsuzaka,  who entered  training camp battling for the fifth starter role and 
was sent to Triple-A to begin the season before being called up as a reliever, 
had  three  saves while in Japan.  He got Allen Craig  to line out to right to 
start the ninth, struck out Daniel Descalso and then got Peter Bourjos to foul 
out  to become  the fourth different reliever  to get a save for the Mets this 
season. 

"I  wanted to  have Dice  close  today," said  Mets manager  Terry Collins  of 
Matsuzaka.  "I wanted  to him to get used  to it. I don't know what's going to 
happen.  Kyle (Farnsworth) done  a great job, but I wanted to see how Dice was 
going to handle it." 

The  slumping Granderson started the game on the bench. He entered the contest 
with  just one  hit in his last 25  at-bats, ending an 0-for-22 skid with a 1- 
for-3 effort on Wednesday night. 

"That was a big hit for Curtis," said Collins referencing Granderson's RBI hit 
in this game. "Hopefully this is the stage he breaks out of it." 

The  newest Met Bobby Abreu started in right field in place of Granderson, who 
then  entered for  Abreu as  a defensive  replacement after  his pinch-hitting 
duty.  Abreu finished 1-for-3  in his first start in the majors since July 25, 
2012. 

The  teams exchanged fifth-inning runs when Tony Cruz came through with an RBI 
double for the Cards and Chris Young answered with a solo homer in the half of 
the inning. 

Kolten  Wong, who  scored on  Cruz's hit,  had two  of the  four hits  for the 
Cardinals, who have dropped three of four overall. 

                                   Game Notes 

Eric  Young  has reached base  safely in 18 straight  games ... Recker got the 
start  at catcher in place of Travis d'Arnaud, who was given the day off after 
a  night game.  The Mets improved to  5-0 this season and 21-14 dating back to 
last season when Recker starts. 

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