Swept: Mets 5, Phillies 4

The Phillies front office showed they were going all-in this offseason when they signed Nick Castellanos to a contract. He was brought to Philly to hit homers and help propel the offense. Well, he did just that in the eighth inning on Sunday Night baseball. The three-run blast by the newest Phillies gave the team a late 4-3 lead. Unfortunately, the front office did not do enough with the bullpen, as another blown save cost the ‘Phils a chance at getting a win in New York.

Zack Wheeler has once again been the Phillies’ best pitcher this season. After a rough first inning, in which Wheeler suffered from bad luck and bad defense he was able to settle in and keep the Phillies in the game.

In that first inning, the Mets struck for three runs, most of which were off the bat of poorly hit baseballs. Luis Guillorme hit a leadoff double, followed by Starling Marte’s single which had runners on first and third. Then a costly throwing error by Rhys Hoskins allowed the Mets to score their first run of the game.

Then Pete Alonso hit a blooper to right and the bases were loaded with none out. The Phillies spent the rest of the inning trading outs for runs and that was all of the offense we saw for New York in the first eight innings. Four of the six batted balls in that first inning had an exit velocity of 80 mph or less. Wheeler pitched well all things considered as his final line included six innings pitched, allowing four hits, one earned run, and seven strikeouts.

Sadly, the bullpen continues to let the team down. The Phillies lead remained 4-3 in the ninth inning but closer Corey Knebel recorded another blown save after giving up a leadoff homer to Nick Plummer. This was Knebel’s third blown save of the season.

With the score at 4-4, we headed to extra-innings and the Phillies started the top of the 10th by doing nothing. They could not even move the ghost runner from second base. Situational hitting once again bit the Phillies in the butt. Knebel came back out for the bottom of the tenth and promptly gave up a one-out RBI double to Eduardo Escobar to end the game.

The Phillies are a bad baseball team right now. They are six games under .500 with a record of 21-27. Also, they have dropped to 10.5 games behind the Mets in the NL East standings. Next for the ‘Phils is a three-game home series against the San Francisco Giants.