Ventura Homer in 9th Defeats Phillies

Robin Ventura had never hit a home run that felt as strange as this one.

Ventura homered in the ninth inning off Turk Wendell, his teammate just the day before, to give the New York Mets a 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday.

"It was just odd. I`ve never been on a team where that`s happened before," Ventura said.

Wendell, pitching for the Phillies one day after being traded by the Mets, relieved to start the eighth and retired his first three batters.

"It probably takes the cake for being in strange situations in baseball," Wendell said.

Ventura led off the ninth and hit a 1-0 pitch over the right-field wall for his 18th home run, a shot estimated at 446 feet.

"As I turned around and watched the ball go over the fence, for a second I thought `Why me? What did I do to deserve this?"` Wendell said.

Wendell (4-4) and fellow reliever Dennis Cook were sent to the Phillies for minor league pitchers Bruce Chen and Adam Walker after Friday night`s game, also won by the Mets.

Ventura said he`d never hit against Wendell before.

"Obviously, I`ve seen him pitch and seen him get a lot of people out," Ventura said. "But you try to put that out of your mind."

Philadelphia dropped 1½ games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East. The Braves played Saturday night at Montreal.

Armando Benitez (4-3), the fourth New York pitcher, worked a scoreless ninth for the win.

Philadelphia trailed 3-0 before Tomas Perez homered off Al Leiter with two outs in the sixth and Doug Glanville added an RBI double.

The Phillies tied it in the seventh on an unearned run.

Tsuyoshi Shinjo, inserted for defensive purposes at the start of the inning, dropped a routine fly ball by Pat Burrell to short right field, allowing Bobby Abreu to score the tying run.

Abreu doubled with one out off reliever Jerrod Riggan and stole third.

Phillies starter Omar Daal ran into trouble in the first inning when Todd Zeile doubled with one out, and Mike Piazza walked. Jay Payton and Benny Agbayani delivered two-out RBI singles for a 2-0 Mets lead.

Agbayani made it 3-0 when he led off the fourth with his fifth home run.

After Perez`s third homer this season, the Phillies followed with three straight hits.

Former Met Todd Pratt and pinch-hitter Brian Hunter singled before Glanville doubled off the center-field wall to score Pratt. But Leiter struck out Jimmy Rollins to end the inning.

Leiter gave up two runs and 10 hits in six innings. He struck out five and walked one.

Daal allowed three runs on seven hits in five innings.

Game notes:
Rollins extended his club-record consecutive stolen base streak to 28 in the fifth with his NL-leading 33rd steal. ... It was the first win this season for the Mets that ended with a home run. ... Daal has won once in his last five starts. ... Pratt, who was hitting .163 with the Mets when they traded him to the Phillies last week, went 3-for-4.

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News