Looking for a silver lining in Saturday’s 3-2, 13-inning defeat against the Los Angeles Dodgers? At least Mike Pelfrey put a string of subpar starts behind him.

During his previous appearance, Pelfrey had his shortest career start: 1 1/3 innings at Arizona. He had failed to complete five innings in four straight starts.

On Saturday, Pelfrey limited the Dodgers to two runs on six hits and two walks (one intentional) in five innings. He could have continued, but Jerry Manuel pinch hit for him in the sixth with the Mets threatening and having struggled so mightily of late to score runs.

“We were just in a tight game where we felt we needed to do something offensively,” Manuel said. “… It becomes alarming when you’ve got to do those things in the fifth or sixth inning because you’re not getting anything done.”

Manuel and pitching coach Dan Warthen felt Pelfrey had become seduced by his secondary pitches in recent starts, and had gotten away from his signature power sinker. Sure enough, Pelfrey threw far less curveballs and sliders against Los Angeles.

The breakdown: 53 fastballs, 22 splitters, two curveballs, one slider and four intentional balls, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Both curveballs were to left-handed batters -- James Loney and Xavier Paul, and both came in the fifth inning. The slider was to Paul in the first inning.

“I wanted to do better. After last start, I don’t know if I could have done any worse,” Pelfrey said. “Good or bad, I needed to walk off using my No. 1 pitch and my No. 2 pitch, instead of getting beat with my three and four.”

Pelfrey produced his first 1-2-3 inning since June 25.

The runs came on a first-inning sacrifice fly by Paul and a third-inning RBI single by Brad Ausmus.

Pelfrey has now allowed 12 first-inning runs in his past nine starts, including at least one in eight of them. In his first 11 starts of the season, Pelfrey had allowed only one total first-inning run.

“Usually I feel if I get through the first I usually get stronger,” Pelfrey said. “That first inning has been biting me.”

Saturday’s first-inning run was highly preventable. Jose Reyes lost Rafael Furcal’s leadoff grounder, which Warthen -- a former Dodgers bullpen coach -- said is a common issue because of the configuration of the stands at Dodger Stadium. Pelfrey then had an errant pickoff throw to move Furcal to third base.

“It’s tough to see,” Reyes said. “With the seats they have there, if he hit a line drive right at me, he’s going to kill me. I didn’t see that ball at all. I only saw that ball at the last moment when it passed close to me.”