Mets Treat Mom to 7th Straight Victory and Sweep of Pirates

Mother's Day was a grand event at Citi Field yesterday, as the Mets upped their winning streak to seven straight with a 8-4 victory over the Pirates, sweeping the series and getting Livan Hernandez a victory in his 150th career game.

Livan struggled early in the game and seemed to have trouble finding the strike zone. But after all was said and done, he made it through 6 innings and struck out 5 for his third win of the year against one loss.

Down 2-0, the Mets struck for 3 runs in the bottom of the fourth, with catcher Omir Santos driving in 2 runs with a clean shot to rightfield in which he was thrown out at second trying to make it a double. No complaints here on that one - we always like aggressive ballplaying.

And the score stayed close throughout the game until the bottom of the eighth when the Mets broke it open against Pittsburgh's John Grabow. Santos and Ryan Church both singled, then Fernando Tatis was hit by a pitch loading the bases. Up came the free swinging Jose Reyes, who worked out a walk for an RBI. After Luis Castillo's sacrifice fly, Carlos Beltran stepped in with his pink bat (several players used pink bats for Mother's Day and breast cancer awareness and the bats will be auctioned to raise money for Susan G. Komen for the Cure) and smoked a Citi Field double to score Tatis and Reyes and basically end the game right there.

By the way, Citi Field doubles are shots that would be homeruns in any other ballpark. Carlos Delgado had one as well in the fourth.

How does a 17-13 record sound so far? And how about tonight's matchup?: Johan Santana against the Brave's Derek Lowe. Wasn't he the guy that didn't like the Mets off-season offer?