Phillies' Wigginton has memorable day in win over Mets

NEW YORK - It was the perfect time for a breakout, a team dealing with more injury issues and a player mired in one of the mini slumps that mark the long 162-game season.

Ty Wigginton brought back memories of yesteryear, or at least April, and his career day couldn't have occurred at a more opportune time.

Wigginton went 3 for 3 with a double, home run and a career-high six RBIs as the Phillies beat the New York Mets, 8-4, in a Memorial Day afternoon matchup at Citi Field.

This game came the day after ace Roy Halladay was pulled after the second inning of Sunday's 8-3 loss in St. Louis with a shoulder injury. Halladay will be examined on Tuesday.

Then the Phillies pulled catcher Carlos Ruiz from the original lineup with tightness in his right hamstring, and he is day-to-day.

And on a day when winning pitcher Cole Hamels gave up as many as four earned runs for the first time this season, the Phillies needed the offense to bail him out.

Wigginton may not have been the expected leading candidate. He entered the game 0 for his last 8. In addition, he was 1 for 9 in his career at Citi Field.

"I really started to feel good lately, and it's a matter of time," Wigginton said. "[Hitting coach Greg Gross] and I have been in the cage a lot working and it paid off today."

He's trying to get back to his April form, when Wigginton had a 13-game hitting streak. He entered Monday batting .238 and bumped it up to .256.

Wigginton said his goal is to return to that late-April groove.

"It's a matter of staying on that course of a long season," he said.

Wigginton opened the scoring and ended it for the Phillies. He gave them a 2-0 lead with a third-inning two-run double, the first hit off starter Jonathon Niese.

His day ended with a three-run homer in the ninth off Manny Acosta for the final runs of the day.

Yet his most impressive at-bat may have been when he broke a 4-4 tie in the seventh with a two-out RBI single up the middle on a 100 m.p.h. full-count fastball from fireballing righthander Bobby Parnell.

Wigginton said he would have been content to walk, since there were already runners on first and second.

"You have guys in scoring position and you want to stay in the big part of the field, and I got a pitch I could hit," he said.

So did John Mayberry Jr. in the sixth inning when he crushed a Niese fastball for his second home run, a two-run shot that gave the Phillies momentarily a 4-2 lead.

Mayberry has 118 career hits and 51 are for extra bases, or 43.2 percent.

"I can't explain that one," Mayberry said.

The Phillies (26-24) have now won five of their last six. They have won nine consecutive games started by Hamels.

Hamels (8-1) survived despite allowing four earned runs. In his first nine starts he had not allowed more than three earned runs in any game. Hamels pitched eight innings, allowing seven hits, while striking out six and walking one. He threw 109 pitches.

"Luckily I had a low pitch count and could keep battling," said Hamels, who surrendered two-run homers to Vinny Rotino and Scott Hairston.

"I got away with some pitches and unfortunately you won't get away with pitches up in the zone and those two pitches were up," Hamels said.

Hamels got out of a serious jam in the eighth after Andres Torres led off with a double and advanced to third on Kirk Nieuwenhuis' groundout to second. Daniel Murphy then hit a weak groundout to second for the second out, with Torres unable to advance.

That brought up David Wright, who ended the inning by grounding out to Placido Polanco at third on a 3-2 change-up. Wright, now batting .373, went 0 for 4 against Hamels.

"It was one of those cases I threw a lot of change-ups the three previous at-bats," Hamels said. "I wasn't planning to throw him one, but it was the perfect situation."

As perfect as Wigginton giving his team a lift when the Phillies needed it the most.