Odalis Perez knew the day would eventually come when he'd earn a victory as a member of the Nationals. He just figured win No. 1 would come on a night he pitched much better than this.
After going winless in his first eight outings despite posting a 3.43 ERA, Perez on Monday got the win at last despite allowing four runs and 11 hits over 6 1/3 labored innings against the Mets. His Nationals teammates, though, helped out for a change, exploding for 10 runs in a 10-4 victory at Shea Stadium. "That's the way this game works," manager Manny Acta said. "He has given us about six or seven quality starts and hasn't been able to get a win. And then today he started so shaky and didn't look like he was going to last out there at the beginning, and we scored enough runs to get him his win."
Perez, who also helped his cause by recording the first three-hit game of his career, never got down on his teammates when they didn't provide him run support through the season's first month and a half. His team-first approach was appreciated.
"We know he's going to come out and give us quality starts," center fielder Lastings Milledge said. "All we need is a couple of runs and he's going to go out and do the rest. We really, really concentrated on giving him some runs because we haven't been supporting him with runs yet this year. Once we broke out and scored, I knew we'd be OK."
NATIONALS 10, METS 4: Washington's offense exploded for the first time in a long time, giving hard-luck pitcher Odalis Perez his long-awaited first win of the season. Perez had posted a 3.43 ERA in eight starts this season but was winless until Monday, when he allowed four runs and 11 hits over 6 1/3 innings. But the Nationals came through with 10 runs off the Mets, and Perez chipped in with the first three-hit game of his career.
