SAN DIEGO — Jason Isringhausen now has 300 good reasons to appreciate the fact he resurrected his career last spring.
With a scoreless 10th inning last night, the veteran righty became the 23rd pitcher in major league history with 300 saves, helping the Mets snap a five-game skid with a 5-4 victory over the Padres.
Isringhausen, who became Mets closer last month after Francisco Rodriguez was traded to the Brewers, notched his seventh save in 11 chances this season. He had recorded No. 299 last Tuesday — the Mets’ previous victory before last night — when he worked a perfect ninth against the Padres.
“It is special — it’s the reason I came back was to get 300, and now I got it,” Isringhausen said after the Mets popped champagne corks to celebrate. “Now it’s time to move on and hopefully get a few more saves before the end of the year.”
Rodriguez was among those to congratulate Isringahusen — the Brewers reliever sent a congratulatory text message to him after the game.
“I didn’t want to see [the trades] with Frankie and Carlos [Beltran] and stuff, but it put me in a position where I could achieve this,” Isringhausen said. “It’s nice. I’m just glad it’s over with, and we can go about playing baseball and getting some more wins.”
It capped a storybook comeback for the 38-year-old right-hander who hadn’t pitched in the major leagues in two years when he arrived at the Mets’ spring-training complex last February for a tryout.
It came nearly 10 years after the Mets had traded Isringhausen — once a hard-throwing member of “Generation K” — to Oakland for reliever Billy Taylor. Isringhausen has undergone 11 surgeries, including Tommy John surgery three times.
Manager Terry Collins said Isringhausen is the perfect role model for the Mets’ younger players.
“If nothing else, you’ve got to battle, you’ve got to hang in there, and he’s the ultimate example of that,” Collins said.
Isringhausen had to work for this one. With the tying run at third and winning run at second in the 10th, Logan Forsythe hit a shot that Ruben Tejada knocked down. Forsythe was thrown out to end the game.
Isringhausen joined John Franco and Billy Wagner as the pitchers who earned their 300th save wearing a Mets uniform.
Scott Hairston’s RBI fielder’s choice in the 10th accounted for the go-ahead run after Bobby Parnell had squandered a 4-3 lead in the eighth.
Jason Pridie and Josh Thole walked in the 10th to begin the go-ahead rally before Tejada’s sacrifice bunt moved runners to second and third.
With the infield in, Hairston hit a sharp grounder, on which Thole was tagged out between second and third and the go-ahead run scored.
R.A. Dickey gave the Mets a chance by allowing three earned runs on seven hits and a walk over 6 1/3 innings. He faltered in the seventh, allowing a two-run homer to Will Venable that pulled the Padres within 4-3.
Parnell gave up the lead in the eighth, allowing an RBI single to Jesus Guzman after Orlando Hudson had walked with one out and stolen second base.
Lucas Duda’s homer leading off the second got the Mets started against Aaron Harang, but the Mets weren’t done. Pridie walked and Thole launched a shot into the right-field seats for his third homer of the season.
The Padres pulled within 3-1 in the third on Kyle Blanks’ RBI double against Dickey, but the Mets got the run back an inning later on Thole’s RBI single, after Pridie had walked and stolen second.