Mets Sweep Struggling Phillies

The New York Mets road a strong performance from rookie pitcher Noah Syndergaard, both on the mound and at the plate, to a 7-0 victory and a series sweep of the Phillies at Citi Field. The victory was especially sweet for Mets’ manager Terry Collins, who celebrated his 66th birthday today.

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Syndergaard (2-2) tossed 7.1 dominating innings, scattering 6 hits while striking out 6 and walking none. Meanwhile, at the plate the Mets’ hurler went 3-3, including a 4th inning homerun, the first of his nascient big league career.

Lucas Duda staked the young hurler to an early lead, crushing a solo homer with 2 outs in the bottom of the 1st inning to make it 1-0. Duda would go deep again later in the game, and was 3-4 overall on the day.

In the 3rd, Duda doubled with one out to start things again. He scored on an RBI single by Daniel Murphy, and then Michael Cuddyer followed with a line drive 2-run homer to left, putting the Metropolitans up by 4-0.

The hosts then methodically pulled away, scoring solo runs in each of the next three frames. In the 4th, it was Syndergaard’s solo homer. In the 5th, it was Duda’s 2nd of the day and 8th of the season. In the 6th, they scratched out a run with a walk, a hit batsman, a single, and a sac fly to push the score out to what would be the 7-0 final.

Phillies starter Sean O’Sullivan was awful, and was left out longer than usual simply to take one for the team. Over 5.2 innings he was scorched for 11 hits, including all 4 Mets homers. In all he allowed 7 earned runs before being mercifully removed.

Ben Revere and Grady Sizemore each had a pair of hits for the Phillies, whose 8 total hits were widely scattered and amounted to nothing on the scoreboard. It was the 5th time that the club has been shutout this season, and marks the 19th time they have scored 2 runs or less in 49 games.

Jake Diekman and Jonathan Papelbon each got in some work, and yielded nothing to the New Yorkers, but the damage had already long been done and the game settled. The loss concludes the Phils road trip with 4 straight losses and an overall 3-7 record.