Mets demolished by Phillies as brutal losing skid hits seven

PHILADELPHIA — By the time a nightmarish seventh inning had ended, the Phillies had scored six runs and broken open what had been a tie game.

The Mets’ problems in the inning:?

A tired bullpen imploded following yet another short outing from a starting pitcher;?
The defense could not record what should have been a fairly easy out, extending the frame;?
The offense has scored seven runs in five games, and thus this kind of implosion cannot be overcome.?

“I think right now [in] every area,” manager Carlos Mendoza surmised, “we’re fighting through it.”?

The Mets lost a seventh straight game because no part of their game was crisp, rolled again by an NL East foe in a 10-2, series-opening demolition by the Phillies at a sold-out Citizens Bank Park on Friday night.

For the first time since May 30, the Mets (45-31) do not have a share of the division lead, leapfrogged by Philadelphia (46-30).

“I just think as a whole, as a group, we’re not playing clean baseball,” said Pete Alonso, who was part of the problem defensively (although half of their offense, too).

The club’s worst losing streak since July 1-7, 2023, was clinched in a 10-batter, five-hit, two-walk, one-poor-play seventh in which Reed Garrett (charged with four runs without recording an out) and Justin Garza (two runs in the frame and two more in the eighth) were smacked around.

Against Garrett, Brandon Marsh, who had sliced a double down the left-field line, scored on a double from Trea Turner that gave the Phillies a lead that wouldn’t be threatened.

After a Kyle Schwarber walk, Alec Bohm inside-outed a single through the right side that scored Turner.

Juan Soto fielded the ball without urgency, lackadaisically threw in to cutoff man Alonso, and Alonso threw high and late to Brett Baty, allowing a lead-footed Schwarber to reach third.?

“It’s just little things here and there that kind of add up throughout a game,” said Alonso, who with Jeff McNeil launched back-to-back home runs in the sixth that comprised the Mets’ entire offensive output. “It’s not cutting down a runner or not getting a guy over. But if you do that over the course of time, it kind of adds up, and it’s added up over the past seven games.”

Garza entered and let up two hits — a poked RBI single from Nick Castellanos and a skied double to Bryson Stott that bounced off the center-field wall at an angle that Tyrone Taylor was not prepared for. Brandon Nimmo instead retrieved the ball and started a relay that ended with Castellanos and J.T. Realmuto sliding home within a second of each other, both beating a tag from Luis Torrens.

The Phillies padded the lead with a two-run shot by Castellanos in the eighth, but extra runs qualify as overkill against Mets bats right now.

Over the Mets’ past 16 innings, they have scored in one frame — when Alonso and McNeil victimized former Met Taijuan Walker to briefly tie it — but that was the end of any offensive life.

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The tone was set — or rather, the tone was picked up from where it left off in Atlanta — in the first, when the Mets loaded the bases with one out before McNeil grounded into a double play.

The Mets entered play hitting an NL-worst .215 with runners in scoring position and proceeded to add an 0-for-2 to that ledger.?

“Especially with runners in scoring position [we have chased outside the strike zone],” Mendoza said. “Or whenever they get ahead, we’re missing our pitches early in the count.”

With the offense poor, the defense a problem and the bullpen exposed, the Mets needed more than call-up Blade Tidwell could provide.

The spot starter was fine, certainly better than his first career outing, but lasted just 3 ?/? innings in which he was charged with two runs on four hits and three walks.?

Tidwell held the Phillies scoreless for three innings before loading the bases in the fourth and getting the ground ball he sought from Otto Kemp.

But as became a theme, the Mets could not convert the inning-ending double play, Baty leaping for the ball, throwing to McNeil at second and the relay to first a half-step late.

“It kind of stinks going through it, no doubt,” Alonso said. “I’m sure people watching — it’s not necessarily fun to watch. It’s not fun doing it, I can promise you that.

“For us, we just need to be better on all sides of the ball.”