Progress is measured incrementally around Shea Stadium these days — a player’s return, perhaps sooner than expected, from injury; a dropoff in the fans’ bubbling resentment at their beloved Mets’ slow start; even a simple victory.

The Mets are a better team than they were at the start of the day, and not just because they defeated the Washington Nationals, 6-0, Tuesday night — a win powered by five runs batted in from David Wright.

Back were José Reyes, who notched four hits and scored a run after missing two games with a strained left hamstring, and Duaner Sánchez, who celebrated pitching in his first major-league game since July 28, 2006, by tossing a scoreless ninth inning.

Their contributions — and what they could mean over a long season — were as essential as the seven shutout innings that Mike Pelfrey pitched in plowing through an overwhelmed Washington lineup. Among the Mets’ starters, only Johan Santana has lasted as many as seven innings, but Pelfrey stands alone in one other category. He is the team’s only pitcher with two victories.

Manager Willie Randolph’s summation of the game was simple: “A lot of good things happened.�

Pelfrey — 0-2 and an 8.14 earned run average in spring training — gave up five hits and two walks, striking out four. But the numbers that truly excited Randolph and the pitching coach Rick Peterson were 12 and 99. The first was the number of groundouts that Pelfrey, a sinkerballer, induced, and the latter was the number of pitches he threw.

By comparison, Pelfrey threw 100 pitches in five innings last Wednesday against Philadelphia.

With the score 2-0 in the sixth, Randolph demonstrated his confidence by letting Pelfrey bat, and Pelfrey responded by setting the Nationals down in order in the seventh.

“After the last game, the five-and-dive I did, I wanted to go a little deeper into the game and be more efficient,� Pelfrey said.

Sánchez, one of baseball’s elite setup men before having two separate shoulder operations, said “it was crazy� when he received a standing ovation exiting the bullpen. “I wasn’t expecting the fans to react that way.�

That sort of excitement had not been present since Saturday, when Santana made his Shea debut (and was later booed lustily), but the malaise seemed to disappear early. First, it lifted during a pregame ceremony to commemorate the 61st anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier that the players on both teams observed by wearing his No. 42. It further dissipated when Reyes appeared.

The Mets had missed Reyes’s energy during two losses to Milwaukee. He led off with a single, and though he was caught leaving first base too early on an attempted steal, his eagerness to run quelled doubts — his own included — about his hamstring.

“I didn’t expect it to be that good,� Reyes, who fell a homer shy of the cycle in raising his average to .273 from .205, said of his game.

His return to the leadoff spot also inspired Randolph to make his first significant lineup switch, bumping Ryan Church to the No. 2 spot and dropping Luis Castillo, whom he once called an ideal No. 2 hitter, to eighth. Randolph did not offer much of an explanation before the game other than saying, “I just like the way it looks.�

Consider it a reward for the left-handed-hitting Church, who had been particularly impressive against left-handed starters, batting .286 with a home run in 14 at-bats. The Mets, who faced the lefty Odalis Pérez on Tuesday, began the game batting .330 against left-handed pitching, best in the National League, which was heartening news for a team scheduled to face lefty starters in its next four games.

Almost on cue, Church singled in his first at-bat, and he scored when Wright hit a home run for the third consecutive game, a two-run blast. With the score 2-0, the Mets, as is their wont, proceeded to squander scoring opportunities in the third, fourth and fifth innings. That might have been troublesome if Pelfrey were not rolling along.

In the first, Brian Schneider threw out the player he was traded for, Lastings Milledge, trying to steal third. But that moment did not delight the crowd as much as Pelfrey’s escape of a third-inning jam. The night was still early, the game close, when Pelfrey stared down what proved his stiffest challenge — bases loaded, one out and the Nationals’ best hitters, Ryan Zimmerman and Nick Johnson, due up. Pelfrey had walked the previous hitter, Milledge, on five pitches, but Zimmerman swung at an outside fastball and popped out.

In his previous at-bat, Johnson poked a changeup for a single, but here Pelfrey seemed determined not to let Johnson beat him on his secondary pitch. He fired five straight fastballs. He wanted the last two down and in, but he missed his target, a little up, he said. No matter. Johnson swung at them both, ending the threat.

The scene was one of the night’s more unexpected developments — a rousing cheer from the crowd, a snapshot of a dominant starting pitcher, a victory in its early stages — but what it represented was a welcomed improvement, nothing more, though appreciated still.