NEW YORK -- The Mets could barely touch Rockies starter Jon Gray on Monday, but the Colorado bullpen couldn't finish the job.

The Amazin's rallied for three runs in the seventh inning and turned a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 victory.

Jonathon Niese got the win he probably deserved, and the Mets improved to 60-52 on the season and two games in front in the NL East, with the Nationals playing in Los Angeles late Monday.

The Rockies dropped to 47-63.

Quiet start: Gray, the third overall pick in the 2013 draft, was making only his second major-league start. He limited the Mets to just one hit in six innings of work. That hit was Travis d'Arnaud's second-inning home run, his fifth of the season, and it gave the Mets a 1-0 lead.

The Rockies went in front in the fourth inning, courtesy of Carlos Gonzalez's two-run homer following a D.J. LeMahieu single. Other than that, Niese was excellent. He gave up just those two runs on six hits with five strikeouts and no walks in seven innings.

Thanks to the Mets' rally in the bottom of the seventh, Niese's record improved to 7-9, and his ERA dropped to 3.46. Tyler Clippard pitched a 1-2-3 eighth, and Jeurys Familia notched his 31st save.

Loud finish: Gray had only thrown 75 pitches through six innings, but Rockies manager Walt Weiss chose to go to the bullpen to start the seventh.

Justin Miller gave up a one-out single to d'Arnaud, then walked Michael Conforto, which quickly put him in hot water. He got pinch hitter Juan Uribe to pop out but then walked Ruben Tejada to load the bases.

Lefty Boone Logan entered the game to face the left-handed-hitting Curtis Granderson and plunked him with a 3-2 pitch to bring home the tying run. Then Logan surrendered a two-run single to Daniel Murphy, the biggest hit of the game.

What's next: The second game of this four-game series will be Matt Harvey (10-7, 2.76) on the mound for the Mets, opposed by lefty Chris Rusin (3-4, 4.66) for the Rockies, with first pitch scheduled for 7:10 p.m.