This game stunk and I don’t have a title: Mets 6, Phillies 4

Man oh man, these Phillies can be hard to watch sometimes. It doesn’t take away from everything good they’ve done this year, all the strides they’ve made, but when they’re bad, they can be completely unwatchable. So went this 6-4 loss to the Mets.

This game perfectly illustrated how the Phillies are fading, and fading fast. Which is really annoying considering Rhys Hoskins might be getting out of his slump. How do I know? Well, he hit a home run in his third straight game and put the Phillies up 2-0 in the first.

That’s seriously incredible — no one on the Phillies has hit 30 home runs in a season since 2011. It’s also sad. Really, really sad.

Vince Velasquez made it through the first inning by the skin of his teeth. He allowed a lead-off triple from Amed Rosario which scored on a single, cutting the Phillies’ lead in half. Velasquez then hit Todd Frazier and allowed Brandon Nimmo to walk, both with two outs already on the board. The bases were loaded, but he managed to induce a strikeout from Austin Jackson to end the inning. That was a lot of adrenaline to expend in the first inning. I’m not even talking about Velasquez, I’m talking about me. That was tense.

The Phillies blew a bases loaded scoring opportunity in the second inning, a sign of how things were going to go for the rest of the day. The Phils clogged them up on two singles and a walk, but managed to rack up two outs along the way. Justin Bour struck out swinging to end the inning and the scoring opportunity.

Velasquez held on as long as he could, but eventually he was going to fly too close to the sun. His wings melted in the fifth inning. A double, a hit by pitch, and a single scored one run to tie the game. Then, with the game tied. Velasquez faced Michael Conforto. He hit a two-run double off the fence in LEFT FIELD, and if you know a little about Citi Field, you know that the fence in the outfield is home run territory. The call was overturned and the two-run double was a three-run home run.

The Phillies never recovered. They got one back in the sixth inning, but considering the opportunity they had to score, one run just wasn’t good enough. They loaded the bases but couldn’t capitalize. Again. Yet another bases loaded situation wasted.

The Mets scored one more run off previously untouchable Hector Neris, but it couldn’t have mattered less at that point. Same with Carlos Santana’s solo home run in the ninth. It brought the Phillies to within two runs, but there were two outs. The game wasn’t over, but it might as well have been. And then it was.

All I can say is that maybe they’ll do better next week when they face... the Nationals. Keeping the faith is hard, but someone’s gotta do it.