Phillies waste 4 homers, lose another series to Mets originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
NEW YORK -- Six games into their season rivalry, the New York Mets are pretty much owning the Phillies and that's not exactly comforting with what lies ahead this week.
The Mets beat the Phillies for a fourth time in the new season, 10-6, at Citi Field on Sunday night. The Phils ended up losing two of three in the series. They also lost two of three to the Mets three weeks ago at Citizens Bank Park.
Oh, yeah, the Mets come back to Philadelphia for a four-game series beginning Thursday night.
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Sunday night's loss left the Phillies at 11-12 as they head into an off-day on Monday. They have played seven series this season and won just two of them.
Meanwhile, the Mets have won all seven series that they have played. They have the best record in the National League at 16-7.
The Phillies' weekend trip to New York featured a 4-1 win in the middle game of the series. That was surrounded by the Phils being no-hit on Friday night and them squandering a pair of one-run leads Sunday night.
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Starter Zach Eflin was presented with a 1-0 lead in the top of the second thanks to a home run from Saturday night's hero, Kyle Schwarber. The lead quickly vanished in the bottom of the inning when the Mets strung together a pair of singles and a groundout to tie the game. With two outs in the inning, Luis Guillorme doubled over center fielder Odubel Herrera's head for another run. Herrera's route to the ball was not good. Had it been more direct, he might have made the play and saved a run.
The Phils took the lead in the seventh inning of Saturday's night game on a walk to J.T. Realmuto followed by a homer from Schwarber. They used the same combination, this time against Max Scherzer, to take a 3-2 lead in the fourth inning. Once again, the lead vanished the next half inning when Eflin gave up a single to Eduardo Escobar and a double to Dom Smith as the Mets tied the game.
An inning later, the Mets surged ahead for good. They loaded the bases against Eflin with one out on a single, a double and an intentional walk. Jose Alvarado came into the same situation he did the night before and this time, instead of stranding all three runners, allowed them all to score. One of the runs scored when Alvarado crossed up Realmuto. The other two scored on a hit by Smith, who has 34 RBIs in 203 career at-bats against the Phillies.
Speaking of Phillies killers, Jeff McNeil had his fifth career four-hit game against the Phils and Scherzer pitched six innings of four-run, nine-strikeout ball to improve to 2-0 against the Phils this season and 16-4 lifetime. The Phillies will see Scherzer again later this week.
All of the Phillies' offense came via the long ball, three of them against Scherzer, one against reliever Yoan Lopez. Schwarber hit two of them against Scherzer, a solo shot and a two-run shot. He has 16 homers and 32 RBIs in 36 career games against the Mets. Harper connected against Scherzer in the sixth. Johan Camargo blasted a two-run shot against Lopez in the ninth.
The game featured a couple of hit batsmen in the ninth. Cristopher Sanchez hit Francisco Lindor and Lopez hit Alec Bohm. That could make things interesting later this week.
