PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies not only believe they can hang with the Mets, they believe they can beat them.
They believe it because they played competitively against them last weekend in New York, even though they lost two of three. So the Phillies looked forward to this weekend’s four-game series against the Mets at Citizens Bank Park. It is their final opportunity to play them, unless they meet again in the postseason.
But the Phillies lost Friday night’s series opener in front of their third sellout crowd of the season, 7-2. They are 4-12 against New York in 2022. It was not what the Phils wanted. But at least fans got to see Vanilla Ice, Tone Loc, Rob Base and DJ Jazzy Jeff afterwards in a postgame concert.
The Phillies will try again Saturday in a day-night doubleheader.
“We can’t really afford to think like that,” Kyle Schwarber said, asked if the Phillies might be pressing against the Mets. “Every game is important. We’ve just got to find a way to win a baseball game at the end of the day. Today we didn’t. We have to accept it and move on and come in tomorrow because we’ve got a double dip.”
Right-hander Aaron Nola allowed five runs in five innings, with sloppy defense leading to two runs. The offense could not get much going against Mets right-hander Chris Bassitt.
Nola allowed one run in eight innings against the Mets in his previous start last Saturday in New York. But Friday he fell victim to poor defense in the first, when Alec Bohm’s errant throw to second escaped into the outfield and allowed the game’s first run to score. It hurt him again in the fifth, when the Mets executed a double steal on Bryson Stott’s yanked throw home.
In between, Nola allowed a trio of two-out, two-strike hits in the third as the Mets took a 4-0 lead. Starling Marte got things started with a one-out double, which traveled underneath the glove of Bohm and down the left-field line.
Pete Alonso then hit a two-run home run to left on a 2-2 fastball to make it 3-0.
Alonso continues to punish the Phillies. The Mets selected him with the 64th overall pick in the second round of the 2016 MLB Draft, 63 picks behind Mickey Moniak, who was the first overall pick, and 22 picks behind Kevin Gowdy, who was the Phillies’ first pick in the second round . Moniak and Gowdy are no longer with the organization.
Alonso has six home runs and 22 RBIs this season against the Phillies. The only other player to have at least six homers and 22 RBIs against the Phillies in the last 60 years is Cincinnati’s Eric Davis in 1987.
Alonso entered the series batting .281 with 12 homers, 42 RBIs and an .881 OPS in 61 career games against the Phillies.
“Smart hitter,” Nola said. “I’ve faced him a lot of times. He’s seen all my pitches. He’s smart. He battles you. He doesn’t give away at-bats.”
Daniel Vogelbach followed Alonso with a double on a 3-2 fastball. He scored on Jeff McNeil’s single to right on a 2-2 curveball.
A couple of things about that sequence. First, Nola entered the game with opponents batting only .184 against his fastballs, which tied with the Yankees’ Nestor Cortes for the best mark in the Majors (minimum 150 plate appearances ending on fastballs). Second, opponents batted only .152 against him with two strikes, which tied for 42nd out of 141 pitchers. It was the fourth-best mark of Nola’s career, four points below his career average (.156) and 34 points below last season’s mark (.186).
“Those guys are tough,” Nola said. “They see a lot of pitches. I’ve had some good games against them. I’ve had some not good games against them. I think I threw 20-some pitches to [Jeff] McNeil. That’s when you know he’s going pretty good. I didn’t really make the greatest pitches when guys were on base. I think that hurt me today.”
The Phillies scored a couple of runs in the fifth to cut the Mets’ lead to three. It energized the crowd a bit. But then the Mets scored two more in the seventh to put the game away.
“We love it when everyone is coming out in full force,” Schwarber said. “That’s a fun environment for us and we want to give it to them. We still have a lot of baseball left to be played, and when you have that behind you, it’s really fun to play.”
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