On the Mets beat

So said Carlos Delgado, smiling, as the Mets packed up their gear and headed for the bus following tonight's white-knuckle 10-9 victory over the Phillies. Consider this one a bullet dodged. After so many ridiculous losses this season, if the Mets had coughed up a 10-1 lead ... I'm not even sure how to finish this sentence. It would have been bad. Real bad.

Instead, the Mets stuffed a few cheesesteaks in their carry-ons for the two-hour ride back to Shea, where they kick off a six-game homestand that begins Tuesday night against the Giants -- and Tim Lincecum.

I know everyone is all geeked up now that the Mets took three of four from the Phillies, inched over .500 (45-44) for the first time since June 5 (30-29) and trail the Phillies by only 2 1/2 games (two in the loss column). But we've been down this proverbial road before -- and it's always ended with a tires-screeching, ball-of-fire crash (see Padres, San Diego).

Billy Wagner somehow wound up behind the wheel tonight, and rebounded from Sunday's blown save to squeeze out No. 20. He came full circle when Jayson Werth -- who hit the tying two-run homer on Sunday -- flied out to rightfield this time with the tying run at second.

"You forget, I played here," Wagner said. "You can never let down with this team. They make you earn it here. You have to earn what you get here and that’s exactly what it is every time we come here. They step up against us and you know what, we found a way to win three games, and that’s what’s important."

Important win, sure, but Carlos Beltran came very close to committing a fatal mistake in the ninth inning when he rifled a throw to third base on Pedro Feliz's RBI single. Beltran was trying to cut down Eric Bruntlett, but the ball skipped away from David Wright and allowed Bruntlett to stroll home anyway to trim the lead to 10-9.

The bottom line is that it was a dumb baseball play. Beltran's first priority should have been to keep Feliz, the tying run, from moving into scoring position. Instead, his throw to third let him practically walk to second. Manager Jerry Manuel admitted it was not a wise decision. When Beltran was asked about it, however, he was defiant.

"Well, you're not a baseball player," Beltran said. "I felt if [Wright] caught the ball, that guy wouldn't have got to second."

That logic made no sense. As soon as Beltran let go of the ball, Feliz was headed for second, and there was nothing that could have stopped that.

Here's a few other plot twists from the night:

-- Pedro Martinez was practically an afterthought given the suspense that followed. Martinez allowed five hits and two earned runs over 5 1/3 innings to get his ERA down to 6.86 and the six strikeouts were impressive. But after talking around retirement in St. Louis, this outing was an improvement, but hardly where Martinez wants to be.

"I’ve been working on the changeup a lot," Martinez said. "I’ve been working on my location. And strength has a lot to do with it. There were some fastballs that I pulled that I just got power on them. Right now I’m really understanding what to do specificially – and those things are going to happen. I came off of surgery throwing below 80, 88, 86 then now all of the sudden I jump up to 90, 93. It’s a little adjustment I have to make."

-- Manuel, who was tossed for arguing Ryan Howard's disputed homer in the seventh inning, had the quote of the night. Here's Manuel coming off last night's gritty win and the looming second-half battle with the Phillies.

"This is going to be a difficult task," he said. "You've got to man up and keep pushing."

That's gangsta for you.