Behind scenes with NY Mets and Mariners at MLB Little League Classic
The Little League Classic was a day chock full of events for the Mets and Mariners on Aug. 17, 2025, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
PHILADELPHIA — In the home of the America’s most famous bell, the Mets’ own alarm bells are going off following a second straight hapless defeat to their immediate rivals to the south.
While the Phillies are looking like the class of the NL East, the Mets’ incomplete performances have them grappling with their own claim to an NL Playoff spot.
For six innings on Tuesday, the Mets were held to one hit and three walks while the Phillies launched an immediate offensive with four runs in the first two innings.
The Mets had few answers for the second straight night as they were blasted for a 9-3 loss in front of 41,609 fans at Citizens Bank Park.
“We’re good, but we gotta play better,” Carlos Mendoza said. “We gotta fight. We’re in the middle of it. There’s no time to feel sorry. You gotta fight. What’s in the past is in the past and we gotta continue to take it one game at a time.”
When the Mets finally pushed across a run on a Mark Vientos home run in the seventh, Kyle Schwarber countered with three more Phillies runs on his 50th home run of the season to get the game well in hand for the NL East pacesetters.
Tense times for the Mets
The Mets should no longer be looking up in the standings but down after their latest meager performance on Tuesday night in Philadelphia.
With the loss, the Mets dropped to nine games back of the Phillies in the NL East with 17 games left to play.
The Mets are now a mere two games above the Giants for the final NL Wild Card spot and the schedule does not get any easier with two more against the Phillies and the Rangers and Padres looming in the next week.
“It’s a tough stretch right now. We just gotta find a way to play better baseball,” said Juan Soto, whose feat of reaching 30-30 with a stolen base late was overshadowed in the loss. “Attack early, try to come out and give some room to the starter so they can work a little bit more freely. Yesterday was a tough one, today was a tough one, too. We were kinda shaky a little bit on the offensive side.”
The offensive fireworks that sustained the team through the month of August have been snuffed out. In five of their last six games, the Mets have scored three runs or fewer.
Sean Manaea’s frustrations boil over
The usually-soft-spoken Sean Manaea was wound so tight that the emotions came bubbling to the surface.
After allowing four earned runs on five innings in two innings, including back-to-back home runs to Otto Kemp and Harrison Bader in the second, Manaea ventured down the tunnel in the dugout followed closely by Mendoza. The Mets manager reassured the left-hander of his belief. The left-hander let loose.
“Just said, ‘Screw it.’ It can’t get any worse. Just let go and started to pitch,” Manaea said.
The Mets left-hander managed to settle in from there, registering seven straight outs and going the final 3⅓ innings without giving up a hit. After walking Kemp to lead off the fifth inning, he closed by striking out the top of the Phillies lineup — Bader, Schwarber and Bryce Harper — in order.
Mendoza finally saw a pitcher on the attack with his fastball.
For Manaea, it was the fifth start in his last six that he has allowed at least four earned runs but his first of at least five innings since Aug. 15. Manaea will look to move past those first two unsettled innings. Mendoza continued to throw support behind him despite his third loss of the season driving up his ERA to 5.76.
“This is a guy that we’re counting on. He was huge for us last year,” Mendoza said. “I know this has been a struggle for him and obviously he’s frustrated too, but we’re gonna need this guy. We brought this guy in to make an impact and our job is to continue to help him.”
Mets offense stuck in neutral for second night in a row
When Ranger Suarez is at the top of his game for the Phillies, he can unfurl a balanced six-pitch arsenal, find the both corners of the strike zone and change speeds.
The Mets saw one of the Phillies’ top arm at his best on Tuesday night.
The left-hander was dialed in from the start, striking out nine batters in the first four innings while keeping the Mets hitless and only issuing one walk.
When Brandon Nimmo laced the first hit of the game for the Mets to lead off the fifth, he was immediately erased on a Starling Marte double play. When Francisco Alvarez and Jeff McNeil walked in back-to-back at-bats, Jose Siri struck out on a curveball to end the threat.
Suarez’s night ended with back-to-back strikeouts of Juan Soto and Pete Alonso in the sixth inning. That tandem finished a combined 0-for-6 with six strikeouts against the Phillies starter.
“Sometimes you got to give him credit. When they land pitches on the corners and they do it all night, it’s not easy to hit off,” Soto said. “We’re hitters, we hit mistakes and we’re just waiting for the mistakes to do damage. Guys like that, they’re just hitting the corners and getting calls right on the edge. It’s tough to do damage off them.
With six shutout innings from Suarez, the Mets saw a stretch of scoreless innings stretch to 16, dating back to the ninth inning of Sunday’s loss to the Reds. Vientos broke that slump with a solo home run off David Robertson to lead off the seventh inning.
Soto rapped an RBI single in the eighth and swiped third base for his 30th stolen base of the season, but the Phillies answered with two more runs in the bottom of the eighth.
“We’re trying to figure out what is going on but we’re definitely working,” Soto said of the offensive inconsistency. “Those guys out there, they’re working really hard from top to bottom. They come in every day. They come in early, do their stuff. We’re doing anything we can to try to get out of it.”