The Mets have won a lot of games this season with their power. They showed once again yesterday that they don’t need to go long to win, parlaying a disputed single into a big inning.

Carlos Delgado, David Wright, and Paul Lo Duca drove in two runs apiece and the Mets pushed across six runs in the third inning of an 8–3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.

New York, which had homered in nine straight games before yesterday, has won nine of 10 to increase its NL East lead to a season-high 15.5 games over the second-place Phillies.

“It’s nice to know that you can manufacture runs and also hit the home run out of the ballpark,” Mets manager Willie Randolph said. “It’s always nice to see a different twist every once in a while, and when we attack teams that way we’re real tough.”

Ryan Howard hit his NL-leading 47th homer and Pat Burrell had a tworun drive for Philadelphia. Howard homered in all three games of the series and has seven homers in his last 15 games against the Mets.

“We made a couple of little mistakes, but little mistakes have been hurting us and they did today,” manager Charlie Manuel said.

Manuel was ejected in the third inning after an unusual sequence led to a reversed call that hurt the Phillies. Wright came up with runners on first and third and one out, and bounced a pitch from Jamie Moyer (1–1) up the line. Third-base umpire Randy Marsh said it was foul and Randolph came out to argue.

“From my angle, it was pretty obvious that it hit the edge of the bag,” Randolph said. “Unless it hit a rock or something, it just jutted out to the left. Randy is an excellent umpire. He obviously was screened on the play or didn’t really see it hit the front of the base there.”

The umpires huddled briefly in the infield and changed the call, giving Wright an RBI single and putting runners on first and second.

“It’s something I’ve never seen before and might not see again,” said Wright, who also hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh.

Manuel was ejected by Marsh after he came out to argue. He stayed in the infield to argue a little more before retreating to the dugout.

“I just looked at it 10,000 times in there,” Manuel said afterward. “It didn’t hit the bag. You can see space between it and the bag. We got three or four different angles on it.”

Marsh told a pool reporter that the ball was curving down the line and he was distracted when third baseman Abraham Nunez came over. He said he conferred with the other umpires and they said it hit the base.

Wright’s hit made it 4–0. Shawn Green added an RBI double and Chris Woodward hit a sacrifice fly to finish off the Mets’ big inning.

Moyer pitched six innings in his second start with the Phillies, allowing nine hits and seven runs, five earned. The Phillies acquired Moyer from the Seattle Mariners for two minor league pitchers on August 19.

Jose Reyes had two hits and scored two runs, and John Maine (4–3) pitched 6.1 solid innings for the Mets, who finished off an 8–1 homestand.