NEW YORK -- Matt Harvey was dominant, as usual. And the New York Mets gave him a few runs, which is rather unusual.
Harvey shut out the Colorado Rockies through eight innings Tuesday night. His teammates finally pushed one across in the sixth inning (see below), tacked on three more in the eighth, and that was more than enough for yet another victory in Queens -- the Amazin's are now 40-18 at Citi Field after their 4-0 win.
New York has taken the first two games of this four-game series, and is now 61-52 -- two games ahead of the Washington Nationals in the National League East, with the Nats playing in Los Angeles.
Colorado is now 47-64.
The ace: Harvey has been especially good of late -- entering the game he had a 1.65 ERA in his past nine starts. He gave up just four hits Tuesday, and three of them were infield singles, the other being a double by Ben Paulsen. Only two runners even reached second base.
Eric O'Flaherty finished the job, pitching the ninth. Harvey is now 11-7 on the season, and his ERA dropped to 2.61.
The runs: The Mets had at least one hit in each of the first four innings against Rockies lefty Chris Rusin. But they couldn't break through until the sixth. Michael Cuddyer, in his first game since returning from the disabled list, sparked the Mets' offense with a one-out single. He went to second base on Travis d'Arnaud's two-out infield single, then came home on Ruben Tejada's subsequent single.
Cuddyer smacked a one-out single in the eighth, and walks by d'Arnaud and Tejada loaded the bases. Lefty Boone Logan was brought in to face pinch hitter Curtis Granderson, and he walked Granderson, forcing in a run. (The Mets capitalized on the same situation Monday night.) Then Logan gave up a two-run double to Juan Lagares.
Lagares, getting a rare start these days, went 3-for-5.
What's next: The third game of this four-game series. Jacob deGrom (10-6, 2.13) will start for the Mets, opposed by lefty Jorge De La Rosa (7-4, 4.85), with first pitch scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
