NEW YORK, May 8 (UPI) -- Kirk Rueter pitched 7 2/3 innings and J.T. Snow homered and drove in three runs WEdnesday night as the San Francisco Giants defeated the New York Mets, 8-2, for their sixth straight win.
Rueter (5-1) yielded just five hits while walking one and striking out five to win his fifth consecutive start and record his 100th career victory. He also helped himself with two hits and a run scored en route to his first win in 13 games against the Mets, the only National League team he had yet to beat.
David Bell led off the game with a walk off former Giant Shawn Estes (1-4), advanced when Barry Bonds was hit by a pitch and scored on ex-Met Jeff Kent's single.
The Giants added three runs in the fifth -- all with two outs. Kent reached on a fielder's choice, stole second and scored on Snow's double to deep center. Reggie Sanders plated Snow with a triple to right and scored when third baseman Edgardo Alfonzo fielded Tsuyoshi Shinjo's grounder but bounced his throw off the mound.
Snow gave San Francisco a 6-0 lead in the seventh with a two-run homer, just his second of the season, off reliever Mark Guthrie. In the eighth, Rueter singled off Scott Strickland and scored on Rich Aurilia's double to deep left-center, where the ball fell between Joe McEwing and Jay Payton.
The Mets avoided the shutout in the bottom of the inning, when Payton drilled a two-out double off the top of the wall in center field to plate Rey Ordonez and chase Rueter. Mo Vaughn singled in Payton.
Kent capped the scoring in the ninth with a leadoff home run off closer Armando Benitez.
Mike Piazza, a late scratch after aggravating his sore right elbow in Tuesday's 5-1 loss to the Giants, came on as a pinch hitter and grounded out to third to end the contest.
It was the Mets' fourth straight loss and fifth in six games.
Before the game, New York learned that 41-year-old lefthander John Franco needs surgery to repair an avulsion of the MCL and flexor tendon in his pitching elbow and will miss at least the rest of the season.
