Jeanie Bo’ Beanie: Phillies 5, Mets 3

The Phillies played the Mets tonight and two things needed to happen for this team.

1. Aaron Nola absolutely had to pitch a good game tonight. Not ok, not average - a good game.
2. Someone other than Bryce Harper had to show that they were able to contribute to the offensive output of the team.

In the top of the first, #2 was quickly shown it was going to happen.

Trying to sneak a first pitch fastball past Jean Segura is never a good idea and he made Carlos Carrasco pay for trying to do so. Armed with an early lead, Nola would go to work on the first key of the game. Though it took him maybe a pitch or two more than he wanted, Nola got a shutdown inning right away in the first, getting the Mets 1-2-3.

In the third inning, Segura struck again, taking another mistake from Carrasco and depositing it into the left field seats for another solo home run that gave the Phillies a two-run lead.

While Segura took care of the offense for the early part of the game, Nola took care of the Mets with his strong outing tonight. He was able to get past the fifth inning with no harm, but made an early mistake in the sixth when he allowed a one out triple to Brandon Nimmo that gave the Mets a little life. Francisco Lindor would ground out to drive Nimmo in for the Mets’ first run, but that was all they would get. Pete Alonso would follow with a walk, prompting Joe Girardi to bring in Jose Alvarado to relieve Nola by facing Michael Conforto. He got Conforto to chase a nasty slider for the final out and any momentum that the Mets had was quashed by the move.

The seventh inning saw the Phillies start to get more production from the other parts of the lineups when Brad Miller doubled off of Brad Hand, followed by a wild pitch that sent him to third and Freddy Galvis double that scored Miller. Odubel Herrera was hit by a pitch with one out, bringing up Segura. The Mets had no intention of letting Hand face Jeanie bo Beanie, so Trevor May came on in relief. He got Segura to pop out for the second out, but with runners on first and second, there was nowhere to put Harper. You know what that means.

Those two runs essentially iced the game for the Phillies. The Mets would get a run in the seventh when Dominic Smith singled in Javier Baez, followed by another in the eighth on a home run by Nimmo, but the bullpen did its job tonight, getting the needed outs for a Phillies victory.

It was so nice to see Nola throw well tonight. He has been (deservedly) criticized this season for his poor performance, but on this evening he had the Mets handled pretty easily. Segura gave the team what they needed, another bat that can help Harper drag this offense towards contention in these final weeks of the season. If one or two batters can consistently be a threat to do damage along with Harper, the odds of the team making the playoffs go up significantly. Let’s see if it can continue tomorrow.