Lucas Duda remains sidelined with ailing back

Cuddyer’s milestone hit was an RBI single in the fourth inning that scored 3B Juan Uribe, who also collected his 1,500th career hit later in the evening.

The Mets, who swept the four-game series from the Rockies, are a season-high 11 games over. Uribe’s 1,500th hit was a sixth-inning single. He made a pair of noteworthy defensive performs, too, because the Mets (62-52) prolonged their NL East result in three video games.

Next batter, Michael Cuddyer continuing to look good off the DL, lines one to center, Uribe hustles home, Mets up 2-0. As they did on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Mets beat the Colorado Rockies anyway on Thursday – this time by a 12-3 score. “I said to him ‘today we’ll give you another day because I need you for this weekend, but tomorrow if it’s not much better we have to start thinking about how we stay healthy as a whole team, ‘” Collins went on.

It was the second straight night Cuddyer has run all-out despite playing on a left knee that is less than 100 percent. “But their pitching is just better right now”.

The Mets recalled C Anthony Recker from Triple-A Las Vegas and optioned C Kevin Plawecki to the same affiliate. Manager Terry Collins said bringing back Recker, the Mets’ backup catcher most of the last three seasons, is an indication that C Travis d’Arnaud is ready to play nearly every day.

Duda (back) remains out of the lineup Wednesday.