Mets' wild-card lead down to 1 1/2 after they blow 4-0 lead, are swept by Phillies
The Mets' Francisco Lindor steals third base past the Philadelphia Phillies' Otto Kemp during the first inning of a game Thursday in Philadelphia. Credit: AP/Matt Rourke
PHILADELPHIA — It was an echo of a time long past: Harrison Bader at the plate in the middle of an impressive, seemingly inevitable comeback, delivering a little late-season magic. Except this time he was wearing a Phillies uniform.
Though Bader was hardly a dangerous hitter during the tail end of his tenure with the Mets last year, he certainly was a staple on a team that often refused to lose. And on Thursday night, he was the dagger against a Mets team that apparently refuses to win.
Bader hit a go-ahead single in the sixth inning as the Phillies completed a comeback from a four-run deficit to defeat the Mets, 6-4, and complete a four-game sweep.
The Mets scored four in the first, but Phillies starter Jesus Luzardo retired the next 22 batters in a row. Jhoan Duran struck out Juan Soto, Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos swinging in the ninth to make it 25 straight.
The Mets have lost six in a row, hold just a 1 ½-game lead over the Giants and Reds for the third and final wild-card spot and are only five games over .500 at 76-71. They’re 31-44 on the road, are the only team in baseball without a ninth-inning comeback win and for three months have been the fourth-worst team in baseball, posting a .397 win percentage since June 13 (31-47). They’re 14-27 (.341) since July 28.
“I’m not going to say I’m worried, but we don’t have too much time,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “The way you look at it, we’re still in control of the situation, we’re still in control of achieving the ultimate goal, but we’ve got to go out and do it . . . I’m the manager. I’m responsible. It’s my job to get these guys going. And I will.”
The eternal question has been, how?
The Phillies scored two in the fourth and one in the fifth against David Peterson and three more against Reed Garrett to go ahead in the sixth.
Adding to the sting: the Mets were on fire before they turned to ash.
Francisco Lindor and Soto led off the game with back-to-back singles and then executed a double steal to land both in scoring position. Vientos jumped on a middle-in fastball and lined it to right for a one-out RBI single. Brandon Nimmo singled to right to drive in another run and Starling Marte doubled to the leftfield wall to give the Mets the 4-0 lead.
Peterson gritted his way through trouble before finally getting nicked in the fourth. Nick Castellanos worked a one-out walk and Otto Kemp hammered a first-pitch hanging slider 433 feet to center to draw the Phillies within 4-2.
Peterson kept tipping around the edge of disaster in the fifth. He allowed a leadoff single by Weston Wilson to bring up Bader, who blasted a drive 379 feet to left-center, where Jeff McNeil was able to track it down for the out. With two outs, though, Bryce Harper golfed a changeup into the rightfield corner to bring the Phillies within 4-3.
Peterson allowed three runs and seven hits with a walk and eight strikeouts in five innings.
Luzardo was untouchable after the first, allowing four runs and five hits — all in that first inning — before throwing seven more perfect innings, striking out 10 for 200 on the season.
“He was able to spot up extremely well” after the first, McNeil said. “When he’s on, he’s on. I feel like I got one pitch to hit all game.”
Castellanos doubled off Garrett to lead off the sixth and Kemp rocketed a ball to center that was misjudged by McNeil, who saw it sail over his head for a tying double. The Mets had Jose Siri and Cedric Mullins, both natural centerfielders, on the bench.
“I made a bad read on it,” said McNeil, who has otherwise acquitted himself well at a relatively new position. “I saw the pitch and it was down and away and he lunged for it and nine times out of 10 on a swing like that, the ball is going to be in front of you. He got a lot of barrel on it and it kept going.”
Brandon Marsh walked and, with two outs, Bader lined a go-ahead single past Lindor at short to put the Phillies up 5-4. The outfielder, acquired by the Phillies from the Twins at the deadline, is 19-for-36 with three doubles, two homers, seven RBIs and seven runs against his old team this year.
Brooks Raley came in and walked Kyle Schwarber to load the bases for Harper, who hit a shot to first that Alonso initially made an impressive grab on before it popped out of his glove as another run scored.
“We’ve dealt with a lot of adversity and we’ve been able to get back up,” Peterson said. “We’re in a spot now where we’ve got to go. The past is the past.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
