Blade Tidwell had an encouraging outing, but the Phillies had a six-run seventh against the Mets’ bullpen.
The Mets survived the “Blade Tidwell vs. Zack Wheeler” portion of the evening, but then were done in by a disastrous seventh inning by the bullpen, as they fell to the Phillies 10-2 and dropped their seventh straight game.
The Mets had a golden opportunity to jump on Zack Wheeler early, loading the bases with one out, but failed to score (boy, this refrain is getting old). Brandon Nimmo singled and Wheeler issued back-to-back walks to Juan Soto and Pete Alonso, but then Jeff McNeil grounded into a double play to end the threat. That was the best chance the Mets would get against Wheeler, who went on to pitch five scoreless innings.
Blade Tidwell, meanwhile, took a big step forward from his first big league start. He opened his night with a 1-2-3 first inning and kept the Phillies off the board until the fourth. Nick Castellanos led off that inning with a single. Tidwell bounced back to strike out Max Kepler for the first out, but then J.T. Realmuto singled and Bryson Stott walked to load the bases. Tidwell then induced a soft bouncer off the bat of Otto Kemp, but the Mets were only able to get the out at second and Nick Castellanos crossed the plate with the game’s first run. That ended Tidwell’s night and he made way for José Castillo, who allowed an RBI single to Brandon Marsh to plate another run for the Phillies, but then stopped the bleeding there.
In a glimmer of hope for the Mets, Phillies manager Rob Thomson removed the cruising Wheeler after just five innings, bringing in former Met Taijuan Walker. The Mets jumped on Walker immediately, tying the game on back-to-back solo homers by Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil.
But that was the last good moment the Mets would have in the game, as things unraveled for them very rapidly in the seventh. Reed Garrett failed to record an out, giving up back-to-back doubles to Brandon Marsh and Trea Turner to give the Phillies the lead. Garrett then walked Kyle Schwarber and Alec Bohm hit a single off his fists to score Turner and give the Phillies a two-run lead. Garrett was then removed from the game without retiring a batter; to be fair to him, none of the contact he gave up was particularly hard. But the results are what matters and the results were heinous. Justin Garza followed Garrett and failed to stop the bleeding while the game was theoretically still within reach, giving up another soft single to Nick Castellanos and then the back-breaker—a bases-clearing double by Bryson Stott that broke the game open.
The Phillies piled on two more runs in the eighth off Garza in the form of a Castellanos two-run homer. The Mets went down quietly against Tanner Banks and Max Lazar to fall one game behind the Phillies in the NL East.
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Big Mets winner: Pete Alonso, +15.1% WPA
Big Mets loser: Reed Garrett, -35.7% WPA
Mets pitchers: -34.1% WPA
Mets hitters: -15.9% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Jeff McNeil’s game-tying solo homer in the sixth, +16.3% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Trea Turner’s go-ahead RBI double in the seventh, -14.8% WPA