Oliver Perez struck out a season-high 10 and singled twice to start New York rallies, helping the Mets beat the Florida Marlins 6–3 yesterday to avoid a three-game sweep.

Jose Reyes scored two runs and Endy Chavez had two RBIs. Perez went 2-for-2 at the plate with a sacrifice bunt and scored twice.

The left-hander allowed three runs — one earned — and three hits in 5.2 innings. He walked three in his 17th career double-digit strikeout game, and second with the Mets. The other one also came against Florida on September 12, when he whiffed 11.

The Mets chased Marlins starter Anibal Sanchez (2–1) in the fourth, taking a 3–0 lead on Perez’s single, an RBI double by Reyes and an RBI single by Carlos Beltran.

It could have been much worse. Sanchez allowed seven hits and four walks in 3 1-3 innings. The Mets left 10 runners on base in the first four innings. Every New York batter had been on base by the end of the fourth.

Chavez and David Wright had run-scoring singles in the fifth off reliever Matt Lindstrom to put the Mets up 6–1 before Shawn Green struck out with two on.

Joe Smith pitched 1.2 scoreless innings of relief for New York and left with two on and one out in the eighth as the Marlins brought the potential tying run to the plate. Scott Schoeneweis relieved and Joe Borchard hit a low liner to shortstop, but Reyes made a sprawling catch and doubled off Aaron Boone at second base.

Perez, mixing a nasty slider with a steady diet of fastballs, struck out two batters in each of the first five innings. He had fanned nine in each of his last two games, and now has 28 strikeouts in 19.1 innings in his past three outings.

After allowing a double to Dan Uggla and an RBI single to Miguel Cabrera in the first, Perez (3–2) was nearly unhittable, retiring nine in a row from the third into the sixth.

Boone’s single sandwiched between two walks loaded the bases in the sixth. Borchard lined to third base for what should have been the third out, but the ball deflected off Wright’s glove for an error that allowed two runs to score. Perez was replaced by Smith, who struck out pinch-hitter Mike Jacobs to end the inning.

It was Wright’s second error of the game, fifth of the season.

Perez threw 98 pitches, 58 for strikes. Billy Wagner worked the ninth for his fifth save in five chances.

Green extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a double in the second inning. Ruben Gotay, making his first start for the Mets, singled past a diving Uggla at second to drive in Green, tying the score at 1.

Sanchez had a frightening moment in the first inning when Wright’s line drive smacked him in the left leg and ricocheted all they way to first base for the third out. Sanchez went down in pain and trainers rushed out to his aid. After about a minute he got up and was helped off the field. He stayed in the game.

Notes: The Mets left 30 runners on base in the series. “We’ve been poor at picking up the ducks all year,” manager Willie Randolph said before the game. “We need to do a better job of doing this.”