Well, it finally happened. For the first time all season, the Mets lost a series to the Phillies. The Mets were able to avoid Philadelphia when they were at they were in their June swoon. They handled them in April, and were able to narrowly split or win some extended series over the last few months. But the Phillies finally got the best of New York. Oh well.
This was a very listless September game. For losing teams, games in the month of September have a knack for being, um, not exactly must-see television. And look, it’s probably my job to spice up bad games and find narratives to talk about somewhere. It’s probably poor form for me to just tell you this game was boring and sucked and leave it at that.
But this game was boring and sucked.
Noah Syndergaard wasn’t his best self. He was out of sync from the start, and only last four innings after throwing 89 pitches, walking three and allowing three runs on four hits and two home runs. He struck out six, but that was about the only positive for Syndergaard last night.
On offense, the Mets couldn’t figure out Zack Eflin, or any of five relievers Gabe Kapler sent out there after he was done. The team mustered six hits all night, and three of them came from Amed Rosario, who raised his wRC+ to a respectable 88 on the season and has already turned into a very useful player.
Jerry Blevins gave up a run in an inning of relief, and he was followed by Paul Sewald and Tim Peterson, who both handled the last three innings and did not allow any more damage.
OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY
The Mets announced that Zack Wheeler will be shut down, which is probably for the best. At 182.1 innings for the season, Wheeler has thrown 96 more innings than he did last year, and obviously has not thrown this many innings since his 2014 season. Pumping the breaks is probably a good decision.
WHAT’S NEXT
The Mets will try to help Jacob deGrom’s Cy Young case when they head to DC to take on Max Scherzer and the Nationals on Friday night. Scherzer gets the ball against Jason Vargas at 7:10 p.m.