The Philadelphia Phillies battled the entire game, finally putting away the visiting New York Mets on Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park.
The Phillies and New York Mets engaged in a hard-fought game on Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park, with the Fightin’ Phils finally pulling out a 4-2 victory in front of the home crowd.
Jerad Eickhoff provided the club with yet another Quality Start, his 12th of the season among 19 starts (he was close in a few others), allowing just two earned runs on five hits across six innings.
Eickhoff struck out three and walked two, throwing 56 strikes over his 94 pitches. Edubray Ramos (1-0) got credit for the Win, Hector Neris his 16th Hold, and Jeanmar Gomez his 25th Save, all tossing shutout frames in relief.
At the start of this series in my ‘Phillies-Mets Series Preview‘, I stated that the bullpen was going to be pivotal in any Phillies success. That has proved prescient over the first two games.
The Phillies got on the board first when Ryan Howard blasted his 13th home run of the season out to right-center field against Mets’ starter Logan Verrett, the solo shot making it a 1-0 game.
Verrett would go six innings, allowing eight hits and two earned runs while striking out four and walking just one batter. It would be the Mets bullpen that would give up the game, but back to that in a moment.
The Mets would score single runs in the top of the 3rd and 4th innings off Eickhoff to take the lead. In the 3rd, Juan Lagares led off with a double, moved to 3rd on a Verrett sac bunt, and scored on a Jose Reyes sacrifice fly to tie it up.
In the top of the 4th frame, Curtis Granderson led off with a double, moved to 3rd on a ground out, then scored two batters later on a sacrifice fly from former Phillies prospect catcher Travis d’Arnaud.
The Phils evened it up again in the bottom of the 5th when Eickhoff himself led off with a double and moved to 3rd when Odubel Herrera immediately followed with a two-bagger of his own. Two batters later, Eickhoff would score on a ground out and it was knotted at 2-2.
The game was turned over to the two bullpens, and the Phillies broke the tie in the bottom of the 7th when Peter Bourjos reached on a one-out throwing error by Mets’ shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera.
Cody Asche then walked, and following a pitching change, Maikel Franco looped a soft single to left field to score Bourjos with the go-ahead run, putting the Fightin’ Phils on top by a 3-2 score.
In the bottom of the 8th, Mets skipper Terry Collins turned to the brother of Phillies rookie Tyler Goeddel to keep it close. Erik Goeddel allowed a leadoff double to Carlos Ruiz, who then moved to 3rd on a ground out, and then raced home on a wild pitch by Goeddel for an insurance run at 4-2.
“It’s good to win,” Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said per MLB.com contributors. “I didn’t want to hear the Mets fans,” said the skipper in regards to the chanting front-runner fans who are making the trip down I-95 this weekend.
The Phillies and Mets will now face off in the rubber game of the series on what will be a hot afternoon down in South Philly. The Phils will be looking to pull within five games of the final NL Wildcard berth.