CINCINNATI (Ticker) -- Aaron Harang was masterful in helping the Cincinnati Reds complete a rare home sweep of the New York Mets .

Harang allowed just one hit in 6 1/3 scoreless innings as the Reds defeated the Mets, 6-1, to sweep their season-opening three-game series.

It was their first sweep of the Mets in Cincinnati since August 1-3, 1995. Prior to this season, the Reds had won just one of their six meetings with the Mets at Great American Ball Park.

Harang (1-0), whose 10 wins were second on the Reds to ace Paul Wilson 's 11 last year, retired the first five batters and seven in a row in another stretch. He threw 61 of his 96 pitches for strikes.

The 26-year-old Harang struck out five and walked three, including Carlos Beltran leading off the seventh inning. After retiring Cliff Floyd a batter later, he was lifted in favor of Ryan Wagner , who induced Doug Mientkiewicz to hit into a double play.

"I felt great," Harang said. "I felt like could throw any pitch, any count and keep it down in the zone. I think I tried to over do it in the last inning (seventh). I was a little too fine with Beltran. It's good to get the first start of the season out of the way. The adrenaline was pumping."

"He was doing what we stressed to him," Cincinnati manager Dave Miley said of Harang. "He used both sides of the plate. We were shooting for 100 pitches, but he elevated the ball to Floyd a little bit and we decided he'd had enough."

Wily Mo Pena , who was playing in place of Ken Griffey Jr. in center field, homered leading off the second to give Cincinnati a 3-0 lead. That blast served as the only hit allowed by Mets starter Kazuhisa Ishii until the seventh.

"We just wait for our chance to play," Pena said. "I was anxious to get a hit last night but I struck out. They told me that I was playing today, so I tried to clear my mind."

Pena, who struck out as a pinch hitter in his first at-bat of the season in Wednesday's 9-5 triumph, batted .302 with nine homers in 86 at-bats against lefthanded pitching last year.

"Look at Wily's numbers against lefthanders," Miley said. "(Wednesday's starter Tom) Glavine is a little different with that changeup to righthanders."

Ishii (0-1), who was making his Mets debut after three seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers , allowed six runs and two hits in 6 2/3 innings. He issued four walks, including Ryan Freel and Felipe Lopez to open the game, and struck out seven. Freel and Lopez eventually scored, giving the Reds multiple runs in the first inning for the third straight time.

Ishii settled down after giving up the homer to Pena, striking out five consecutive batters at one point.

"Maybe I was trying too hard at the start of the game," Ishii said through an interpreter. "During the course of the game, I was able to bring out the pitching style I wanted."

Moments after new manager Willie Randolph visited the mound before electing to stick with Ishii, pinch hitter D'Angelo Jimenez delivered a two-run double to highlight a three-run seventh.

"He pitched real good," Randolph said of Ishii. "They only had one hit for a long time. He was a little shaky at first. Sometimes in your first start, you come out with a little more energy."

David Wright singled and walked three times for the Mets, who are 0-3 for the first time since 1964.

"I don't make too much of anything," Randolph said. "It's early in the season. We got swept. We go into Atlanta and try to change the pace a little bit."

Wright, who scored New York's lone run on a passed ball in the eighth, drew a walk in the ninth as David Weathers loaded the bases with two outs before Danny Graves retired pinch hitter Mike Piazza to record his first save.

Cincinnati improved to 3-0 for the first time since 1990, when it won its first nine games. That year the Reds went wire-to-wire and swept the Oakland Athletics in the World Series.