NEW YORK _ Seth Lugo has made the loss of Steven Matz less painful.
The right-hander continued his fantastic run by holding Miami to two runs over six innings to help the Mets to a 7-4 win over the Marlins on Tuesday night at Citi Field. Lugo (2-2) has won two of his three starts since taking over for Matz, and Curtis Granderson hit two homers and Asdrubal Cabrera added another.
The Mets (68-64) passed Miami for sole possession of second place in the NL East for the first time since July 10, and have claimed the first two games of this series.
Lugo filled in for Matz after the lefty landed on the disabled list with left shoulder tightness, and Matz will miss more time as shoulder irritation will prevent him from returning Thursday as planned. Lugo has already impressed enough to stick in the rotation once Matz returns, and has made Matz's absence more digestible in the meantime.
Tuesday marked Lugo's third start in place of Matz, and the unheralded righty produced another impressive outing against a team in playoff contention.
Lugo's night started on the wrong foot when he surrendered a two-out, two-run homer to Christian Yelich in the first, but he rebounded to stymie the Marlins.
Like Rafael Montero the night before, Lugo worked himself into some trouble, but he made the necessary pitches.
The first two reached in the third in front of the heart of Miami's order in a 3-2 game, but Lugo retired the next three in order. Two of the balls were struck well, but right to an outfielder, and he struck out Xavier Scruggs looking.
An inning later, the Marlins put runners on second and third with two outs, and Lugo coaxed a fly-out from Dee Gordon to preserve the one-run lead. He held Miami 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position, surrendering five hits while striking out four over 89 pitches. He walked one.
Lugo now has compiled a 2.55 ERA in his three starts in the majors, and has surrendered 14 hits in 172/3 innings while walking five. The ERA is more impressive considering it's against three teams in the NL wild-card race _ the Giants, Cardinals and Marlins.
While Lugo put the Mets in a two-run hole in the first, he had a lead to work with for the rest of his outing. The Mets needed just five pitches to erase the two-run deficit.
Jose Reyes led off with an infield single and Cabrera hit the next pitch into the right-field seats to tie it up. Cabrera now has 17 homers, the second-most of his career, and extended his roll to 16-for-35 since returning from the disabled list. Half of those hits are for extra bases.
Tuesday marked Cabrera's first game in the starting lineup since Sunday, when he had to leave the game in the first inning with discomfort in his knee. Cabrera had collided at first base and was available only as a pinch hitter in Monday's 2-1 victory in 10 innings.
New York took the lead later in the inning with two outs when Wilmer Flores stroked a single into center to score Jay Bruce, who reached on a one-out double. Flores has hit righties better recently, and that could earn him some more playing time down the stretch instead of starting only against lefties.
After the Mets missed on chances to build the lead over the next few innings, they finally added some breathing room courtesy of Granderson, who entered as a pinch hitter in the sixth.
Granderson hit a solo homer off Tom Koehler to lead off the sixth and boosted the Mets' lead to 4-2, then stroked a two-run homer off Dustin McGowan an inning later.
