Phillies Meet the Mets, Don’t Beat the Mets

The Philadelphia Phillies dropped the opener of a weekend series at Citi Field against the host New York Mets on Friday night.

The Phillies opened up a three game weekend series with the division rival New York Mets by getting blown out by a 9-4 final score on Friday night at Citi Field.

Starting pitcher Adam Morgan once again proved to be not up to the task. Morgan (1-8) allowed six earned runs on eight hits over his five innings. He did have a nice 8/2 K:BB ratio on the night, throwing 60 of his 91 pitches for strikes.

Once again for Morgan the problem was that far too many of his strikes were easily handled by big league hitters.

The lefty has been given 15 starts this season with the Phillies across two stints with the big club, and he has yielded 105 hits over 69.2 innings in those starts. It was the fifth time that he has allowed at least a half-dozen earned runs.

The Mets got to him early on, and in a big way. The first two New York batters, Jose Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera, each blasted solo home runs to give the hosts an early 2-0 lead.

When Yoenis Cespedes followed them with a base hit, it appeared that it would be a long night for Morgan. However, he actually appeared to settle down after that.

Heading into the 5th, that same score was holding up, and the Phillies broke through against Mets veteran starter Bartolo Colon when Morgan himself singled home Odubel Herrera to cut the deficit in half at 2-1.

But in the bottom of the frame, Colon and the Mets struck back. The aging, rotund hurler ripped a double to start the home 5th inning. Five batters later, with the bases loaded, Wilmer Flores blasted a grand slam to left-center field, blowing the game open at 6-1.

Frank Herrmann came on in relief of Morgan, and for the third straight outing he was scored upon, allowing multiple runs for a second straight appearance.

Travis d’Arnaud doubled in one run, and Colon followed with his second hit of the game. Two batters later, Colon scored in front of Cabrera’s 15th homer of the season and second of the game, and the Mets had themselves a 9-1 lead.

In the top of the 8th inning the Phillies got singles from Peter Bourjos and Jimmy Paredes, and doubles off the bats of Cesar Hernandez and Aaron Altherr, scoring three runs with nobody out.

With the game now at 9-4, the brief offensive outburst then petered out, and that margin would prove to be the closest that the Phils would get on this night.

With the victory, the Mets moved two games over the .500 mark, staying within 3.5 of the second NL Wildcard playoff spot. The Phillies dropped to 10 games under the break-even mark and are now 6.5 behind New York in the NL East standings.