One of these days, Shawn Green is going to dive for a ball and have it land in his glove.

Luckily, it didn’t matter on Thursday, as the Mets, perhaps because of the Red’s mere futility, won their first game after the All-Star break, holding onto a 3-2 lead despite only scoring one run after back-to-back home runs from Jose Reyes and Ruben Gotay led off the 1st inning with back-to-back home runs.

In it’s first game since firing hitting coach Rick Downs, hiring Rickey Henderson and replacing aging bench player Julio Franco with young outfielder Lastings Milledge, the Mets were looking to shake up it’s woefully inconsistent offense. It looked like it worked, as Reyes and Gotay drove hanging curveballs from Bronson Arroyo over the right field wall.

After the dramatic offensive explosion, however, the Mets could muster only 6 hits and one run, and needed every bit of Orlando Hernandez and the Mets bullpen to secure a victory. Hernandez earned his fifth victory of the season, going six innings and allowing just two runs on three hits.

The Mets were able to hold off a Reds threat in the ninth inning, as Brandon Phillips got caught in a rundown after he tried to reach third base on a routine ground ball to Jose Reyes. Phillips had led off the inning with a single off of Billy Wagner.

So far, the addition of Milledge to the roster seems to be paying off, as he is a much needed reinforcement to the Mets wounded outfield. A seemingly focused Milledge hit the ball hard in his first two at-bats and scored the winning run in the fifth with a terrific hook slide into home plate to avoid the tag from Red’s catcher David Ross. If Milledge can jump on the early count fastballs he will undoubtedly see and avoid any off the field distractions, he could finally live up to his ceiling-less potential.

While Franco’s presence in the clubhouse will be missed, baseball roster spots are always a numbers game, and the Met’s needed more legitimate threats off the bench. Bringing up Milledge and Sandy Alomar Jr. will give Willie Randolph much-needed flexibility in the late innings, especially since Ramon Castro has proven to the Met’s most consistent bench player.