Mets hit speed bump in blowout loss to Phillies
David Peterson of the Mets hands the ball to manager Carlos Mendoza as he is removed from a game against the Philadelphia Phillies in the fourth inning at Citi Field on Friday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
When a weird fourth inning devolved into the Mets’ ugly 12-2 loss to the Phillies on Friday night, David Stearns’ words from hours earlier proved prescient.
He was speaking about this stage of the baseball calendar — the postseason push — and the run the Mets have been on lately when he acknowledged the reality: Sometimes with fun comes stress.
“There are really high highs,” the Mets’ president of baseball operations said, “and there are heartbreaks as well. And we’re at a point of the season where the emotions are heightened in both directions, and that’s a really good thing.”
It was less of a good thing for the 41,474 at Citi Field who watched the Mets’ first loss of the week (and only their fifth in 21 games). With Atlanta’s loss to Miami, however, they maintained a two-game cushion in the race for the final National League playoff berth. The Queens crowd cheered for the first time in a couple of hours when that 4-3 game went final.
Taking the night off from being unstoppable, the Mets did little well. Jose Iglesias went 2-for-4 with a home run and a double; the rest of the lineup was 2-for-26. J.D. Martinez is 0-for-his-last-31. Pete Alonso dropped a routine pop-up, Luis Torrens gave up five steals and Starling Marte made a misplay in rightfield.
It was the pitching, though, that told the story of the night. Manager Carlos Mendoza pulled David Peterson from a two-run game after 3 2⁄3 innings and 64 pitches. Peterson clearly was not in top form — he had allowed eight hits and four runs and had another runner on base — but it nonetheless represented a very quick hook.
Peterson had held the Phillies to one run in 7 2⁄3 innings on Sunday.
“The second time through [the lineup], they were putting together some really good at-bats,” Mendoza said. “They made some good adjustments and they put the barrel on the ball. I thought I needed to be aggressive there and it didn’t work.”
Peterson said of getting yanked: “Surprised. But it was still a close game at that point and he wanted to make a move and that’s his decision. All good and we’re on to the next one.”
The second half of the unexpected move was Mendoza’s choice of reliever: Adam Ottavino. On a night when every reliever appeared available, he turned to the righthander, who in recent months has fallen to the bottom of the depth chart. Ottavino had given up only one run in the past four weeks, but that came in just six games and in low-leverage situations.
In this situation, the game was on the line. Ottavino got ahead of Trea Turner 0-and-2, but Turner grounded an RBI single through the right side of the infield. Bryce Harper followed by drawing an intentional walk (after Turner stole second mid-plate appearance) and Alec Bohm hammered a three-run home run to break the game open.
Ottavino recorded an out only when Nick Castellanos struck out on a pitch clock violation.
“I liked the right-on-right matchup [against Turner],” Mendoza said. “It didn’t work.”
Lefthander Cristopher Sanchez grinded through five innings (two runs) and escaped a jam at a moment when the game could’ve become close: fifth inning, two outs, bases loaded. Alonso went down on three pitches, including a strike-three sinker that nipped the inner edge of the zone.
Infielder Eddy Alvarez, an Olympic medalist in speed skating and baseball, pitched a scoreless ninth for the Mets.
Eight games to go until the playoffs.
“We’re all going to enjoy it. It’s going to continue to be a roller coaster,” Stearns said before the game. “There are never smooth paths, smooth sailings, whether it’s now or into October.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
