Wood, Cubs down Mets

Chicago, IL – Travis Wood pitched seven strong innings as the Chicago Cubs downed the New York Mets, 6-1, to open a three-game series.

Wood (2-3) gave up five hits and a walk with six strikeouts to win his second straight start for the Cubs, who snapped a four-game losing streak. Joe Mather hit a two-run home run in the win.

"The life on his fastball was about as good as we've all seen it," Cubs manager Dale Sveum said. "He was beating guys that are good fastball hitters. He was beating them all night."

Johan Santana (5-4) gave up two runs on five hits with three walks and six strikeouts over six innings for the Mets, who have lost three straight.

The game stayed scoreless until the fourth inning when the Cubs went on top. With two outs, Geovany Soto kept the inning alive with a walk and Mather followed with his fourth home run of the season.

The seventh inning saw the Cubs take advantage of three New York errors. Adrian Cardenas started the inning with a pop up in front of the catcher. David Wright came in to make the play, but fumbled the catch and Cardenas made it to third. After Reed Johnson struck out, Darwin Barney followed with a short fly to right field that saw three Mets converge on the ball. Lucas Duda tried to make the catch, but it hit off his leg and Barney reached third base as Cardenas scored.

"Lucas Duda has done his absolute best and once in a while because he's not a right fielder, you're going to have a hiccup," Collins said of Duda's error.

Next up was Starlin Castro, who hit a chopper to second and the ball hit off the glove of Ronny Cedeno and went into the outfield, scoring Barney. After Alfonso Soriano walked, Ramon Ramirez took the mound and gave up a run-scoring single to Jeff Baker followed by Soto's RBI groundout for a 6-0 lead.

Ike Davis broke up the shutout bid in the ninth with two outs when he clubbed his ninth homer of the year off of James Russell.

Game Notes

Chicago took four of six from New York last season...The Mets went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left seven on base...Wood is 1-0 in two games against the Mets...Santana fell to 3-1 in seven games against the Cubs.