NEW YORK \u2013 There were no late-inning heroics, no furious comebacks, no eye-popping defensive plays for the Phillies on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Their four-game winning streak, built on much of the above, came to an end in a 6-2 loss to the New York Mets at Citi Field.<\/p>\n
It all fell apart in the sixth inning when the Mets capitalized on some shaky Phillies\u2019 defense, sent nine men to plate and scored four times to erase a 2-0 deficit.<\/p>\n
Bryce Harper was in the middle of it all most of the day.<\/p>\n
He clubbed a two-run homer in the top of the third inning to put the Phils ahead.<\/p>\n
Alan Rangel, filling the fifth spot in the starting rotation as a bulk reliever, entered the game in the second inning and did a creditable job protecting the lead through five.<\/p>\n
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Rangel allowed two one-out singles \u2013 one was a soft liner to right that may have been catchable had Gabriel Rincones been more aggressive — before Francisco Lindor smashed a ball past Harper at first base. Harper dived for the 102.4 mph bullet, but it got by him and rolled all the way into the right-field corner for a two-run, game-tying triple.<\/p>\n
Before the inning was over, Jonathan Bowlan replaced Rangel and gave up a two-run single up the middle through a drawn-in infield to make it 4-2.<\/p>\n
The Mets padded their lead with two more runs against lefty reliever Kyle Backhus in the seventh.<\/p>\n
The bottom of the sixth was the decisive frame and it spotlighted a Phillies weakness \u2013 defense. It’s not so much the errors with this team. It’s the plays that go unmade, plays that a sharp team makes. The Phils entered the day with a rating of minus-20 Outs Above Average, according to Statcast. That ranked 29th\u00a0in the majors.<\/p>\n
Had Rincones made a play on Juan Soto\u2019s soft liner to right and Harper made a play on Lindor\u2019s hard-hit ball \u2013 it went under his out-stretched glove \u2013 the Phillies could have gotten out of the inning unscathed.<\/p>\n
Manager Don Mattingly wasn’t immediately sure if Rincones could have caught Soto\u2019s ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t really looked at it yet,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ll have the report, it\u2019ll come out tomorrow, probabilities and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Lindor\u2019s hot smash past Harper:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always have a chance (to make a play),\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cIt was over 100 (mph), scorched pretty good and it had a little hook to it. It\u2019s getting by you pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
To his credit, Harper said he should have made the play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like he top-spun it,\u201d Harper said. \u201cI thought it was going to bounce up and it just kind of got under my glove. Yeah, I was pretty upset about that play. Obviously, it\u2019s a play I think I should have made, but it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Independent of the two plays in the sixth inning, Mattingly was asked what he thinks of the team\u2019s defense in the two months he\u2019s been on the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s times I like it and times that I don\u2019t feel as good about it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of day to day. In general, it\u2019s been OK. I like to see us, obviously, always continue to tighten everything up and get better, where we get the outs that we\u2019re supposed to get and not give those guys extra chances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper\u2019s eventful sixth inning included his being caught trying to stretch a single into a double with no outs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the center fielder fall down and thought I could make it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite losing the lead in the lead in the sixth, Rangel gave the Phils some good work in his second outing since being summoned from Triple A to fill the fifth rotation spot. He pitched five innings of one-run ball earlier in the week in Washington and was rolling along until the sixth inning Saturday. With a sharper defense, he might have gotten a win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was good,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cHe had them off balance. Up until the Lindor ball, nothing was scorched.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesus Luzardo will get the ball as the Phillies look to bounce back and win the series on Sunday afternoon. The Mets will use an opener, lefty Cionel Perez.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 There were no late-inning heroics, no furious comebacks, no eye-popping defensive plays for the Phillies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,259266,82],"class_list":["post-766277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}