Understatement time: it has not been a good week for the New York Mets. The team blew their 5.5 game lead in the NL East thanks to their season-long seven-game losing streak. The Mets finally ended that streak last night, and they had the opportunity to still come out of the weekend with a one-game lead in the division and yet another series victory against the Phillies. Instead, the bats once again went quiet, and one awful inning doomed the Mets to a 7-1 loss.
It was a battle between southpaws tonight, with David Peterson facing off against Jesús Luzardo. Both pitchers held the opposing teams off the board for the first three frames—the Mets, as they are wont to do, failed to capitalize with runners in scoring position in both the first and third inning, and a pickoff at second from Peterson helped him escape trouble in the third. Alas, the Phillies broke through in a big way in the bottom of the fourth, as Kyle Schwarber socked a leadoff homer to center field (it marked the first homer surrendered by Peterson in 49 1⁄3 innings). Unfortunately, it was the first of several hard-hit balls by the Philadelphia bats that inning—following a hard lineout off the bat of Alec Bohm, Nick Castellanos socked a double to left, and J.T. Realmuto then walked to put runners on first and second. Otto Kemp then hit a shot to shortstop that Francisco Lindor couldn’t quite get to, scoring yet another run. Edmundo Sosa then provided a kill-shot, hitting a three-run homer to right-center field to give the Phillies a commanding 5-0 lead.
Peterson allowed two more baserunners in that inning but got out unscathed. His night was done after this, however, with his final line—4 innings pitched, 6 hits, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts, 5 run—looking pretty putrid thanks to his craptacular fourth inning. Chris Devenski was the first man out of the bullpen and tossed a scoreless fifth inning. Dedniel Núñez followed him in the sixth and provided a scoreless frame of his own. All the while, Luzardo continued to shut the Mets offense down without much difficulty. They finally got him out of the game with two outs in the seventh inning due to a high pitch count, but 6.2 scoreless innings makes for a nice day at the office for any starter. Jordan Romano replaced him and got the final out of the seventh.
Tyler Zuber came on for the bottom of the frame for his first major league outing of the 2025 season, and the Phillies proceeded to add on to their lead. Singles from Trea Turner and Schwarber to lead off the inning put runners on first and third, and Bohm then hit a sacrifice fly to right to score a run. Castellanos then hit his second double of the night, a sharp line drive to left which scored Schwarber all the way from first. Zuber proceeded to get the final two outs of the inning, but the Phillies’ lead was now up to 7-0.
In the top of the eighth, facing off against new pitcher Max Lazar, Francisco Lindor did a very odd thing. With two outs in the inning, Lindor hit a solo homer to right field. Why was this odd, you ask? Well, aside from the fact that it looked like the bats wouldn’t be able to score a single run all night, the Mets also hadn’t lost the past twenty-eight games in which Lindor hit a homer. The obvious conclusion from this factoid was that the Mets were going to make an epic late comeback to win this game and keep the streak alive.
Alas, not quite. After Zuber pitched a 1-2-3 inning with a couple strikeouts in the bottom of the eighth, the Mets bats went out for their last licks and did not show much interest in keeping Lindor’s streak going (as evidenced by Hayden Senger pinch-hitting for Juan Soto). Matt Strahm came on to finish the game for the Phillies and retired the side 1-2-3 to quickly put us all out of our misery.
Thus, the Mets leave Philadelphia a game behind the Phillies in the NL East standings. They will head back home to begin a four-game series against the Braves, which they will pray goes better than the last series against Atlanta.
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Box scores
Win Probability Added
Big Mets winner: Francisco Lindor, 3.0% WPA
Big Mets loser: David Peterson, -22.6 WPA
Mets pitchers: -22.2% WPA
Mets hitters: -27.8% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Francisco Lindor leadoff single in the first, +3.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Kyle Schwarber solo homer in the fourth, -12.8% WPA