Those Mets

HOME RUNS IN QUEENS? BOUT TIME.

The Mets may have finally found their long lost power source and it's neither Jason Bay nor David Wright. The tandem of Jeff Francoeur and Rod Barajas, in an early spirited battle for Mets Employee of the Month honors, each stroked a pair of homers and knocked in a combined five runs to help awaken the Mets near-dormant offense as they rolled to an 8-2 victory over the Nationals before a shivering crowd of 28,055 on Friday night. The good news was Mike Pelfrey worked a serviceable six innings, helping erase some of those nasty spring training memories when he went 0-4 with a 6.15 ERA. The better news was that the Mets offense - which had scored just three runs in its previous 15 innings going into the sixth inning on Friday - erupted for a combined four runs in the sixth and seventh to break open a tight game. It was Francoeur's second homer of the night, a two-run shot in the seventh that also plated Fernando Tatis, which broke open the game and gave the Mets a four-run cushion at 6-2. Tatis had driven in Wright with a pinch-hit single that put the Mets up 4-2. The bullpen was also impressive with Hisanori Takahashi working a perfect seventh, ditto Fernando Nieve in the eighth and Jenrry Mejia in the ninth. After he breezed through a seven-pitch first inning, the Nationals got to Pelfrey for a pair of second-inning runs when Ian Desmond tripled to left - a shot that eluded a diving Jason Bay - and plated both Adam Dunn and Pudge Rodriguez for a 2-0 Nats' lead. Those were the only runs Pelfrey allowed on the night as he went a workman-like six innings, allowing two earned runs on four hits while walking four and fanning four. The Mets answered in the bottom of the inning when Francoeur drilled a 1-1 offering from rookie Garrett Mock for a solo homer into the left field stands to pull the Mets within one. Then Barajas got into the act. He led off the fourth by tagging a 1-2 pitch from Mock and parking it in the seats in left centerfield to knot the game at 2-2. For his encore performance against reliever Miguel Batista, Barajas led off the sixth by again launching a 1-2 pitch for his second solo homer of the night into almost the exact same spot in left centerfield to give the Mets their first lead of the night at 3-2. It was the eighth multi-homer game of his career and first since he turned the trick on Texas last August 31 while with the Blue Jays. (NY Daily News)