Sheffield, Murphy key Mets’ rare offensive display in 9-7 win over Reds

Mets put on rare offensive show in 9-7 win

NEW YORK — Gary Sheffield had three RBIs and Daniel Murphy drove in two runs to key a rare robust offense, Mike Pelfrey pitched seven sharp innings and the New York Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds 9-7 on Sunday.

The Citi Field crowd of 40,014 took delight in the Mets’ best offensive output at home since June 24, when they scored 11 against St. Louis. They even chanted for the appearance of the home run apple in center field after Fernando Tatis hit a pinch-hit homer an out after Brian Schneider led off the seventh with New York’s first home run in 80 innings.

The apple popped up at the end of the inning.

Luis Castillo had three hits and scored three runs, David Wright hit a long RBI double and Jeff Francoeur had two hits in his second game with New York. The Mets amassed 16 hits in improving to 8-12 since Carlos Beltran went on the DL June 22.

The Mets needed the offense after the bullpen nearly wasted a 9-3 lead. Francisco Rodriguez gave up a run in the ninth but finished for his 23rd save.

New York scored more than five runs in a game for only the fourth time since Beltran went out. The outburst came on a day the club received a good injury report for the first time in a couple of months: Carlos Delgado (hip) and Jose Reyes (right leg) had encouraging workouts.

High expectations for a playoff run wrecked by injuries, the Mets head into the All-Star break 42-45, 6½ games back of Philadelphia in the NL East. The Reds, who added Jay Bruce to their injury list Saturday with a broken wrist, are also 42-45.

After Wright had an RBI double to center in the first, New York batted around in the third, helping extend Aaron Harang’s winless skid to nine starts dating to May 25.

Sheffield had a two-run single, Muprhy an RBI double and Alex Cora a run-scoring hit to make it 5-0. The last time the Mets scored at least four runs in an inning was July 2 at Pittsburgh.

Harang (5-9) left after three innings, having given up five runs and eight hits.

Sheffield and Murphy added RBI singles off Josh Roenicke in the fourth.

Pelfrey (7-4) rebounded from his start July 7 against the Dodgers in which he gave up five runs in three innings by shutting down the poor-hitting Reds. He gave up two singles in the first, then retired 10 in a row before walking the first two batters of the fifth.

After walking Ramon Hernandez leading off, Pelfrey committed his sixth balk, becoming the first pitcher with six balks in season since Chris Michalak for Toronto and Texas in 2001, according to STATS LLC.

He gave up an RBI double to Adam Rosales, who was called up from Triple-A Louisville on Sunday, and RBI singles to Chris Dickerson and Willy Taveras to make it 7-3.

Pelfrey allowed five hits and three runs, walking two and stirking out four.

Schneider and Tatis extended the lead to 9-3 with homers off David Weathers in the seventh, then the Mets bullpen threatened to give it back in the eighth, loading the bases with no outs.

After giving up an RBI single to Hernandez, Bobby Parnell — the third pitcher of the inning — got the next three batters out, allowing a run to score on a fielder’s choice.

The Reds’ Joey Votto was ejected in the fourth inning after being called out on strikes for the second time.

NOTES: Reds RF Dickerson left after the fifth inning with back spasms. … The last time the Mets had gone at least 80 innings without a homer was April 15-25, 2002. … The last team to go at least 80 innings without a home run was the San Francisco Giants, last year. They went 116 straight innings without a home run between July 22 and August 5, according to STATS LLC.