As a small child attending a friend’s birthday party at Shea Stadium, that neon-bedecked, ugly-charming colossus, I once turned my shirt inside out to create a rally shirt, urging the Mets on to victory. As an adult, I am a Phillies fan, and did not dare to turn my shirt inside out as I watched this game and prepared this recap. This is a testament to how much a person can change over the course of a life, which perhaps will provide some hope that the Phillies might be able to change into a team
that can win at Citi Field. Read on, though do not expect glad tidings.
The Phillies, starting a righty-heavy lineup (Edmundo Sosa, Harrison Bader, Weston Wilson) against the southpaw Sean Manaea, teased their fans with a loud foul and a deep flyout from Kyle Schwarber; they instead received a two-out bingle up the middle from Bryce Harper, and a subsequent inning ending K from J.T. Realmuto.
Jesús Luzardo, the other half of this duel between lefties, soon found himself in tonight’s installment of It’s Always Something in Citi Field. This time, it was the home plate ump taking a request from Juan Soto timeout later than he should have: Luzardo, mid-windup when time was called, completed his pitch, then made his displeasure known. Rob Thomson took to the field for the discussions, and fortunately, all were permitted to return to their posts and continue the game. Less fortunately, the ump then proceeded to miss what ought to have been a called third strike at the bottom of the zone, giving Soto a free pass to first instead of a K.
Pete Alonso made it to first with a single to left, and Mark Vientos took a free pass of his own to load the bases with two outs. A specter began to rise over a Phillies fanbase still stinging from yesterday’s humiliation, seeing dread signs and portents in every new mark on the scorecard. The relief produced by Brandon Nimmo’s strikeout was only partial.
The quibbles with the umpiring continued in the bottom second, as Tyrone Taylor singled, tried to steal second, and was initially called safe on what replay showed to be a successful pickoff play from Luzardo and Trea Turner. Meanwhile, the Phillies largely struggled with Manaea. Sosa rewarded the decision to put him in the lineup with a leadoff double in the third, and none of the subsequent trio of teammates could advance him. They did put a bit more pressure on Manaea in the fourth, with Harper and Alec Bohm singling. But Harper was caught stealing and Bohm was stranded. Both hurlers made it through four unscathed.
It was gradually revealed that the tension of this contest seemed altogether different than yesterday’s. Yesterday was punch-counterpunch (thirteen unanswered counterpunches, actually), but tonight started to look like the slow, grinding tension of prizefighters circling. It would prove to be something more raucous, but it looked like that for a while. In the fifth, the Phillies put runners on first with singles from Bader and Harper, sandwiched by outs. That ended Manaea’s night, and a familiar face, Gregory Soto, came on to replace him. He walked Schwarber, and out came Bryce Harper to a shower of boos. Soto tossed him a pitch in on his hands, Harper slapped at it, and knocked it just hard enough to escape the infield. Many children run around their back yard dreaming of coming up to the plate with bases loaded against an arch rival, but it is the rare child indeed who dreams of hitting a shallow single in that situation. But as adults, we can enjoy the subtler pleasures in life, and the two-RBI bloop single is one of them. The chill of the specter began to fade.
But when Luzardo hit the leadoff batter with an errant sweeper, the shivers began again. They intensified with a single from Francisco Lindor. And they became full-on shudders when Soto chopped a ball that made it past the center of the infield and into center, where Bader launched a poor throw that sailed over the head of J.T. Realmuto, scoring one and putting runners on second and third with none out. Luzardo walked the next batter, and his once-promising night came to an end. Orion Kerkering exited the bullpen as Luzardo delivered a few choice words to the home plate umpire, and got himself ejected. Kerkering promptly gave a pair of hits to score another. At long last an out came in the form of a fly to center, scoring yet another. The game had, like last night’s become the sort of entertainment sought out only by the morose and the enraged.
The Phillies were met with Huascar Brazobán as they attempted to mount a face-saving comeback. A single from Bohm and a double from Bader helped with that, as did an infield single from Sosa, which escaped the glove of Francisco Lindor, scoring one.
The nauseous whiplash of the fifth inning had made the game feel perhaps more out of reach than it really was, being only a two score affair, and so Tanner Banks was given the bottom sixth, which he navigated without serious incident, as did Matt Strahm in the bottom seventh.
The Phillies got their next crack at the Mets bullpen in the form of Ryan Helsley. Nick Castellanos worked a walk, and then Harrison Bader came to the plate. Bader battled Helsley to a full count across six pitches, then sent a 99.1 MPH fastball deep into the night; it seems to have landed somewhere near La Guardia Airport, where it purchased an overpriced slice of pizza and found out that its flight has been delayed by 30 minutes. Bryson Stott came in as a pinch hitter for the platoon advantage and worked a walk. The Mets, having seen enough of Helsley, called for Edwin Díaz and his theme song. He threw a blanket on the fire and induced two strikeouts (one of Brandon Marsh, called in to pinch-hit) to end the inning.
José Alvarado took the bottom eighth, culminating with a 99.5 MPH punchout of Soto.
The Phillies had Díaz again in the ninth, and he once again stifled them. But the Phillies have a lethal closer of their own in the form of Jhoan Duran. But the LD50 for a dose of Duran is, apparently, somewhat less than what the Mets got. A quartet of batters and a quartet of singles ended the game.
The Phillies are 76-56. The concluding game of the series is tomorrow at 7:10.
