Bullpen can’t hold Mets, Phils lose on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball

Coming into last night’s game, the Phillies bullpen had been stellar. They had stranded each of the last 19 inherited runners that they had. The streak went back to 4/20 in Colorado. In the last 9 appearances prior to last night’s game, the bullpen had sported a 1.84 ERA which was the best in NL bullpens since 4/22.

Last night, that changed when starter, Zach Eflin, got into trouble and loaded up the bases before he was pulled from the game for a reliever, Jose Alvarado. Jose was able to handle the Mets on Saturday night, but not Sunday. Looking at the box score of course it’s Eflin that paid the price for that.

Again, the Phils were living on the home run to put them on the scoreboard, Schwarber hit 2 of them, and Harper added another. What the Phillies couldn’t get much of is runners on base and hits to score them. 1-3 with RISP last night. The other batters on the Phillies just cannot seem to get on base enough. Nick Castellanos and Odubel Herrera both had an 0-4 last night.

The Mets meanwhile did nothing but get on base. 15 total hits on the night, and they were scoring the runners, 6-16 with RISP. That’s a lot of timely hitting. We’ve seen Jeff McNeil and Dominic Smith have good games against the Phillies before, and these two teamed up for 8 hits last night combined.

The game took a turn last night when a batter on the Mets had a couple of close inside pitches and then Francisco Lindor was hit by a pitch. The sides were warned and then later, a NY Mets pitcher, Yoan Lopez, hit Kyle Schwarber. Despite both sides being warned by the umpire, Yoan was not thrown out of the game, and Joe Girardi didn’t even argue the fact with the umpire. Even the ESPN announcers were saying that the whole scene was strange, with no ejection and no protest from Girardi.

It just so happened that Johan Camargo hit a nice long home run after Schwarber has hit, and that brought the score to the 10-6 mark before the game ended. The Phils could do no more, and lose 2-3 at Citi Field, with a visit back to Citizens Bank Park scheduled for this Thursday-Sunday with the Mets/Phils rivalry.

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