Wright On!

One night after his bare-handed grab of a fly ball shocked the house in San Diego, David Wright etched his name deeper into the memories of Padre fans and solidified his quest for future stardom by tying career-highs with four hits and six runs batted in to lead the Mets back on to the road to redemption with a 9-1 victory over the Padres.

Joining Wright at the winners, not the whiners table, was Kris Benson who held the Padres to just one run and three hits as the Mets snapped the Padres' five game winning streak and brought theirs back up to one. For a change, no whistful commentary on the Mets horrific road record, no clucks of disappointment at the end of another winning streak whose wings were pulled off before it could ever get off the ground. Just a victory, a beating, a two-man show to carry the Mets into another day.

Highlighting Wright's night was a 400 foot 3 run homer in the 4th inning, his 17th all year, in addition to his 30th double of the season and stealing his 12th base of the season. Although he is still shaky at times in the field, Wright's train appears to be arriving at the station at high speed and if one of these nights we're going to stand back and nod at the words of the pundits in our ears about Wright being the next great third baseman. He is hitting .302 and over the last 30 days he's hitting .354 with 6 homers, 26 RBIs and 8 doubles with a .414 OBP.

The other half of the two man tandem to top the Padres, Kris Benson carried a one-hitter into the ninth before David Ross' leadoff single. He had struck out six and hadn't allowed a walk until Khalil Greene reached with two outs in the eighth inning. His only true error was allowing a one-out double to catcher Miguel Olivo, the No. 8 hitter, in the third inning and thereafter, Benson was virtually perfect, retiring 15 straight before Greene's walk.

*****

The victory kept the Mets on pace both in the NL East, still 7 1/2 behind the Braves and in the NL Wildcard, still three behind the Astros.

Tonight Tom Glavine will try and help win this series for the Mets and bring his own record to .500 on the season.