Zach Duke leads Pittsburgh Pirates past Johan Santana, New York Mets 3-1

Duke leads Pirates past Mets

PITTSBURGH — Zach Duke pitched seven effective innings and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat Johan Santana and the New York Mets 3-1 on Tuesday night.

Jason Jaramillo hit his first major league homer for the Pirates, who have won three of four. Freddy Sanchez and Nate McLouth each had two hits.

Duke (6-4) allowed one run and eight hits to lower his ERA to 2.62. He has allowed two earned runs or less in eight of his 11 starts.

Santana (7-3) gave up three runs and seven hits in six innings for New York, which has lost three of four. The Mets have scored two runs or less in five of Santana’s 11 starts.

New York again was without All-Star outfielder Carlos Beltran, who is dealing with a stomach virus and stayed at the team hotel.

John Grabow followed Duke with a perfect eighth and Matt Capps retired the Mets in order in the ninth for his 12th save and third in the past four days.

Santana retired the first 10 batters of the game but the Pirates seemed to solve him after that, with eight of the next 12 batters reaching against the left-hander.

Jaramillo hit a one-out drive to left to tie it at 1 in the fifth, and Pittsburgh pushed across two more in the sixth. McLouth doubled in Sanchez and scored on Adam LaRoche’s double to make it 3-1.

McLouth also threw out Jeremy Reed trying to score on Luis Castillo’s single in the third.

Reed tied a career high with three hits and Castillo had a sacrifice fly for New York.