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But then an anemic offense took advantage of Marlins closer Steve Cishek and some poor defense to turn a 3-1 deficit in the ninth into a thrilling 5-3 victory Saturday night at Marlins Park.

Cishek allowed singles to Daniel Murphy and David Wright to open the ninth. One out later, Lucas Duda singled home Murphy to pull the Mets within a run. Then pinch-hitter Kelly Shoppach provided the key hit when, with two outs and the bases loaded, he sent a ball up the middle that got by center fielder Justin Ruggiano. Two runs scored on the hit and another came home on Ruggiano’s misplay.

“It’s disappointing,” Cishek said. “The team played awesome today, and getting the extra run to go in kind of makes it a bit more comfortable, but I didn’t fool anyone today.”

Certainly not Shoppach, who is batting .346 with two home runs and seven runs batted in as a Met.

“Panic mostly,” Shoppach said of his feelings after just coming into the game. “My first at-bat is coming in that situation. I don’t think I’ve faced him before.”

The late drama gave the Mets their sixth win in seven games.

“Things like that situation in this game, no matter where you are in the season, those are always big moments, not only for me personally, but for the momentum we have going for us,” Shoppach said.

The ending added some excitement to what had been a slow game matching the Miami ace Josh Johnson and the Mets rookie Jeremy Hefner.

On the heels of a masterly complete game by R. A. Dickey on Friday, Hefner entered looking for his first win against Miami.

Giancarlo Stanton gave the Marlins a 2-1 lead in the sixth on a ball hit near first base that Ike Davis tossed to Hefner, who could not get his foot to the bag ahead of Stanton. The infield single brought home Jose Reyes from third. Hefner set down the next two batters with two on.

Hefner did not have a bad outing, allowing six hits and two runs over six innings, and the Mets’ offense did him no favors. He left after six innings and 92 pitches, having walked one and struck out four.

Manager Terry Collins said he was impressed by Hefner, who continues to exceed expectations.

“I thought tonight was actually locationwise the best I’ve seen him pitch, and he’s pitched well,” Collins said. “He was down in the zone with all his pitches, threw his breaking ball behind in the count.”

It bodes well beyond this season for a team that is clearly in transition and searching for an identity.

“We have a guy who’s getting his first real chance, so there’s a lot of energy there,” Collins said. “There’s a lot of focus with Jeremy. He wants to show us he belongs on the team next year. When he shows up at spring training, he wants a legitimate shot, and he’s pitching like he’s earned it.”

Bryan Petersen doubled to deep center, just left of the Marlins signature sculpture, to drive in Donovan Solano with the game’s first run in the third inning. But Reyes flied out to right with two on to limit the damage. Hefner left Carlos Lee at third base in the fourth after Lee singled to open the inning.

Hefner, who pitched eight strong innings in a no-decision in his last start against Houston last Sunday, was looking for his first win since Aug. 4, at San Diego.

“I feel like I’ve been opportunistic,” Hefner said. “And just trying to take advantage of the opportunity given.”

Hefner has 38 strikeouts and has issued only eight walks in eight career starts.

Johnson was hoping to come out victorious at home for the first time since July 23. He kept the Mets hitless through four innings, with Davis and Wright reaching on walks.

Mike Baxter doubled to start the fifth for the Mets’ first hit, and he tied the score at 1-1 when he came home on a grounder to short by Josh Thole, who later broke a career-worst 0-for-30 streak with a single in the eighth.

Manny Acosta was impressive in relief of Hefner, striking out the side in the seventh. Ramon Ramirez (3-3) pitched the eighth for the victory, his first since April 26 against the Marlins, and Frank Francisco picked up his 23rd save.

With their ninth-inning rally, the Mets handed Cishek (4-2) his first blown save since June 16 and put themselves in position to complete a three-game sweep Sunday afternoon.

The come-from-behind win was the Mets’ 21st of the season.

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Nasa is showing off a high-resolution colour picture sent back by the Mars rover Curiosity, detailing the mountain where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical ingredients of life.

The image reveals distinct tiers near the base of the three-mile-high mountain that rises from the floor of Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on 6 August.

Scientists estimate it will be a year before the rover reaches the layers of interest at the foot of the mountain, 6.2 miles from the landing site.

From earlier orbital imagery, the layers appear to contain clays and other hydrated minerals that form in the presence of water, Nasa has said.

Previous missions to Mars have uncovered strong evidence for vast amounts of water flowing over its surface in the past. Curiosity was dispatched to hunt for organic materials and other chemistry considered necessary for life to evolve.

In this picture, the layers above where scientists expect to find hydrated minerals show sharp tilts, offering a strong hint of dramatic changes in Gale Crater, which is located in the planet's southern hemisphere near its equator.

Mount Sharp, the name given to the towering formation at the centre of the crater, is believed to be the remains of sediment that once completely filled the 96-mile-wide basin.

"This is a spectacular feature that we're seeing very early," said John Grotzinger, a project scientist with the California Institute of Technology. "We can sense that there is a big change on Mount Sharp."

The higher layers are steeply slanted relative to the layers of underlying rock, the reverse of similar features found in the Grand Canyon.

"The layers are tilted in the Grand Canyon due to plate tectonics, so it's typical to see older layers be more deformed and more rotated than the ones above them," Grotzinger said. "In this case you have flat-line layers on Mars overlaid by tilted layers. The science team, of course, is deliberating over what this means.

"This thing just kind of jumped out at us as being something very different from what we ever expected."

Take out plate tectonics and the most likely explanation for the angled layers has to do with the physical manner in which they were built up, such as being deposited by wind or by water. "On Earth there's a whole host of mechanisms that can generate inclined strata," Grotzinger said. "Probably we're going to have to drive up there to see what those strata are made of."

Also on Monday, Nasa said it used the rover to broadcast a message of congratulations to the Curiosity team from the Nasa chief, Charles Bolden, a demonstration of the high bandwidth available through a pair of US science satellites orbiting Mars.

"This is the first time that we've had a human voice transmitted back from another planet" beyond the moon, said Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for Nasa's Mars missions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We aren't quite yet at the point where we actually have a human present on the surface of Mars ... it is a small step."

• This article was amended on 28 August 2012. The original suggested the picture was the first high-resolution colour image from Curiosity. This has been corrected.

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