Mets rally to beat Pittsburgh, 9-8, in 10 innings

July 3, 2009 at 12:05a.m.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Fernando Tatis’ body was laden with ice bags, Francisco Rodriguez’s right arm was wrapped with towels. The weary New York Mets went through a lot to gain an improbable victory in an unwanted game.

Two days after appearing to be in a freefall, the Mets pulled off the kind of victory that can turn a season around. Ryan Church singled in the go-ahead run in the 10th inning, and the Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-8 on Thursday after trailing by five runs and wasting a ninth-inning lead.

“It was a roller coaster, especially the way the day started down 5-0, but it just shows you we are resilient,” Church said.

Adam LaRoche hit a tying two-run homer in the ninth against Francisco Rodriguez before the Mets rebounded to win the makeup of a June 3 rainout. No doubt they would have preferred their first day off in 21‚Ñ2 weeks to playing, but the Mets (39-39) now head into a big weekend series at Philadelphia back at .500 with consecutive wins following a five-game losing streak.

“We could have just said, ‘Let’s pack up and head to Philly, it’s a short flight, let’s get this out of the way,’ ” said manager Jerry Manuel, who held a lengthy team meeting Tuesday in Milwaukee. “They chose to fight and I thought that was what was most impressive. We overcame a lot of things that were adversary.”

Tatis hit a two-run homer among his three hits, was hit twice with pitches — causing him to say afterward he was in pain from head to toe — and scored four times as the Mets staged their biggest comeback of the season to take an 8-6 lead.

They couldn’t hold it as Rodriguez, 21-of-23 previously in save chances, gave up his first tying homer in the ninth since Kevin Millar went deep for Baltimore on July 25 last year.

Rodriguez (2-2), angry at himself, lobbied Manuel to stay in.

“He said, ‘If we score, I need to go back out for myself,’ ” Manuel said. “When one of your players is like that, of that stature and what he means to us, I knew if we came back and he didn’t go back out, he would carry that for a few days.”

Rodriguez responded with a perfect 10th, needing a career regular season-high 46 pitches to get through two innings.

Matt Capps (1-4), who had converted 12 consecutive save opportunities since May 15, got the first two batters in the 10th until hitting Tatis with a pitch. Despite being in pain, Tatis stole second, and Church — expecting a changeup but getting a fastball — lined a single into center for the Mets’ 15th hit.

Pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy began the comeback with a two-run single off Paul Maholm in the fourth after the Pirates opened the early lead against Tim Redding. Jeremy Reed, also pinch-hitting, gave the Mets the lead for the first time with a sacrifice fly that made it 6-5 and finished off a four-run fifth inning.

Tatis added a two-run homer an inning later off Jeff Karstens, but Garrett Jones cut the Pirates’ deficit to 8-6 with a solo homer in the seventh.