NEW YORK – There were no late-inning heroics, no furious comebacks, no eye-popping defensive plays for the Phillies on Saturday.
Their four-game winning streak, built on much of the above, came to an end in a 6-2 loss to the New York Mets at Citi Field.
It all fell apart in the sixth inning when the Mets capitalized on some shaky Phillies’ defense, sent nine men to plate and scored four times to erase a 2-0 deficit.
Bryce Harper was in the middle of it all most of the day.
He clubbed a two-run homer in the top of the third inning to put the Phils ahead.
Alan Rangel, filling the fifth spot in the starting rotation as a bulk reliever, entered the game in the second inning and did a creditable job protecting the lead through five.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Rangel allowed two one-out singles – one was a soft liner to right that may have been catchable had Gabriel Rincones been more aggressive — before Francisco Lindor smashed a ball past Harper at first base. Harper dived for the 102.4 mph bullet, but it got by him and rolled all the way into the right-field corner for a two-run, game-tying triple.
Before the inning was over, Jonathan Bowlan replaced Rangel and gave up a two-run single up the middle through a drawn-in infield to make it 4-2.
The Mets padded their lead with two more runs against lefty reliever Kyle Backhus in the seventh.
The bottom of the sixth was the decisive frame and it spotlighted a Phillies weakness – defense. It’s not so much the errors with this team. It’s the plays that go unmade, plays that a sharp team makes. The Phils entered the day with a rating of minus-20 Outs Above Average, according to Statcast. That ranked 29th in the majors.
Had Rincones made a play on Juan Soto’s soft liner to right and Harper made a play on Lindor’s hard-hit ball – it went under his out-stretched glove – the Phillies could have gotten out of the inning unscathed.
Manager Don Mattingly wasn’t immediately sure if Rincones could have caught Soto’s ball.
“I haven’t really looked at it yet,” he said. “They’ll have the report, it’ll come out tomorrow, probabilities and things like that.”
As for Lindor’s hot smash past Harper:
“You always have a chance (to make a play),” Mattingly said. “It was over 100 (mph), scorched pretty good and it had a little hook to it. It’s getting by you pretty quick.”
To his credit, Harper said he should have made the play.
“I felt like he top-spun it,” Harper said. “I thought it was going to bounce up and it just kind of got under my glove. Yeah, I was pretty upset about that play. Obviously, it’s a play I think I should have made, but it didn’t happen.”
Independent of the two plays in the sixth inning, Mattingly was asked what he thinks of the team’s defense in the two months he’s been on the job.
“There’s times I like it and times that I don’t feel as good about it,” he said. “That’s kind of day to day. In general, it’s been OK. I like to see us, obviously, always continue to tighten everything up and get better, where we get the outs that we’re supposed to get and not give those guys extra chances.”
Harper’s eventful sixth inning included his being caught trying to stretch a single into a double with no outs.
“I saw the center fielder fall down and thought I could make it,” he said. “It just didn’t happen.”
Despite losing the lead in the lead in the sixth, Rangel gave the Phils some good work in his second outing since being summoned from Triple A to fill the fifth rotation spot. He pitched five innings of one-run ball earlier in the week in Washington and was rolling along until the sixth inning Saturday. With a sharper defense, he might have gotten a win.
“I thought he was good,” Mattingly said. “He had them off balance. Up until the Lindor ball, nothing was scorched.”
Jesus Luzardo will get the ball as the Phillies look to bounce back and win the series on Sunday afternoon. The Mets will use an opener, lefty Cionel Perez.
