With first place in the NL East on the line, the Mets and Phillies opened a crucial weekend series in Philadelphia. The Mets were coming off a poor series in Miami, losing three out of four, largely on their inability to get a big hit. Venues change, but the result did not as the Mets carried their poor play to Philly in a 4-2 loss that knocked them out of first place for the first time in 90 days.
Marcus Stroman and Kyle Gibson put on a pitchers duel show on Friday night. Both starters pitched well, with Stroman coming out of the game in the sixth and the Phillies going to their bullpen in the seventh. Stroman struck out five and Gibson struck out three as pitching was the story of the night through five innings..
The Phillies struck first in the second courtesy of Didi Gregorius who hit a solo home run to right field to give the Phillies an early 1-0 lead. Stroman settled in after that, collecting two more strikeouts to bring his strikeout count to three on the day.
The Mets then answered back in the top of the third. Walks to Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso put two runners on with two outs for Dominic Smith who proceeded to hit an RBI single to right field that scored Nimmo to tie the game 1-1.
Both pitchers gave up hits, but no runs in the fourth inning as the pitchers duel continued in Philadelphia. Gibson gave up a single to Michael Conforto in the top of the fourth, and Stroman gave up a two-out triple to Gregorius in the bottom of the fourth, but both pitchers left the runners stranded and alleviate any runs being scored in the inning.
Jeff McNeil led off the top of the fifth with a single to try to get something started for the Mets, but they left him stranded and continued to fail to score runs through five innings.
The Phillies retook the lead in the bottom of the fifth. Brad Miller led the inning off with a lead-off triple. Later in the inning Gibson singled to left field to score Miller and give the Phillies a 2-1 lead over the Mets.
Stroman then collected the last two outs of the inning to avoid any more damage. He collected two strikeouts in the inning to bring his strikeout count to five
Aaron Loup replaced Stroman on the mound for the Mets in the sixth. He gave up a single and a walk in the seventh but collected two strikeouts to get out of the inning.
Hector Neris replaced Gibson on the mound for the Phillies in the seventh and was effective.
Seth Lugo spelled Loup on the mound for the Mets and through a nice inning.
Edwin Diaz came in for the Mets in the eighth and he once again struggled in relief. Jean Segura singled on a ground ball to third and Bryce Harper followed with his 19th home run of the season, a two-run home run to center field that scored Segura and extended the Phillies’ lead over the Mets to 4-1 in the. Diaz would force a ground-out, work around a fielding error and collect a strikeout of Andrew Knapp to end the frame.
Ian Kennedy came in to pitch the ninth for the Phillies.
Jonathan Villar hit his eleventh home run of the year in the top of the ninth to give the Mets their second run of the night to bring the score to 4-2 in the ninth and give the Mets some life. That was all the Mets produced, however as the Phillies went on to defeat the Mets 4-2 on Friday night and take over first place in the NL East and drop the Mets to second place.
Gibson (8-3) was credited with the win for the Phillies, Stroman (7-11) took the loss, and Kennedy (17) was credited with the save for the Phillies.
The two clubs will continue their series on Saturday at 4:15 PM ET. It will be Tylor Megill (1-1) for the Mets vs Ranger Suarez (5-3) for the Phillies as the Mets look to try to regain first place in the NL East.
