Mets Sweep Further Past Braves

Kenny Rogers is enjoying his time with his new teammates.

Robin Ventura homered for the seventh time in eight games and Rogers earned his first victory in the NL as the New York Mets completed a three-game sweep with a 9-5 victory Wednesday night over the Milwaukee Brewers.

"The infield defense is better than anybody I've ever seen, any team I've ever played for," Rogers said. "And, they're consistent at it every day in and day out. That stands out to me more than most because I look for that and I like that"

The Mets, 16-4 since the All-Star break, increased their lead in the NL East to two games over the Atlanta Braves, who lost 3-2 at Pittsburgh.

Edgardo Alfonzo went 3-for-6 with his 16th homer and Mike Piazza had two hits, three runs and two RBIs for the Mets, who hammered out 17 hits.

"Offensively, we had a good series," Ventura said. "We played good defense and pitched well enough to win. That's something you have to do to win a lot of games."

Marquis Grissom, Jeff Cirillo and Geoff Jenkins homered for Milwaukee, which has lost five straight and 10 of its last 12.

Rogers (1-0), making his second start since being acquired from Oakland on July 23, allowed five runand five hits in six innings. Rogers also had an RBI single in the second for his first regular season hit.

"I didn't magnify them with walks," said Rogers, who walked one and struck out four. "Giving up homers, solos don't bother me much at all. They weren't bad pitches, but they weren't good enough."

Ventura hit his 25th homer, a two-run shot in the second inning off Peterson (1-2), to extend his hitting streak to nine games and give him 14 RBIs in his last eight. It was his third homer of the series.

"He hurt us this series," Brewers manager Phil Garner said. "So did Alfonzo, he hurt us. Ordonez hurt us. A lot of guys in that lineup hurt us."

Rogers added an RBI single in the second to make it 3-1. After Grissom's 11th homer tied it in the second, the Mets went up 4-3 in the third when Jenkins overran Benny Agbayani's single to left, allowing Piazza to score.

The Mets added four more runs in the fourth on two-run singles by Piazza and Rey Ordonez.

Peterson allowed seven runs six earned and nine hits in three innings in his fourth big-league start.

"This is a real good ballclub, a real good ballclub," Peterson said. "This is the first time I've ever faced a ballclub like this. You try to get better with every start and obviously I took a little step back today. Hopefully, this only happens this time."

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