PHILADELPHIA — There are no painless losses in a pennant race, not when you’re straddling the threshold between in and out and staring down a difficult schedule for the final two weeks and change.
Still, Saturday stung for the Mets. The Phillies completed a comeback from an early four-run deficit to seize a 6-4 victory over New York at Citizens Bank Park.
“We just didn’t get it done today,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.
For three innings on Saturday, the Mets looked like a steamroller. Coming off a ninth-inning rally and a nine-inning rout in their past two games, they had jumped on Phillies fill-in starter Kolby Allard and Luis Severino was cruising.
And then, slowly but surely, the gaps between its roster and the one that’s played to the best record in the National League began to manifest themselves.
Bryce Harper hit a pair of home runs off Severino. The first, an opposite-field solo shot in the fourth inning, came on a first-pitch changeup — a pitch designed to get a ground ball rolled over to second base. The second, a two-run shot to right field in the sixth, came on a full-count backdoor sweeper that caught more of the plate than Severino intended.
Back-to-back at-bats with a homer for Bryce Harper! pic.twitter.com/itI1vl2lsn
— MLB (@MLB) September 14, 2024
“He was locked in,” the right-hander said, regretting more the two-out walk he’d issued to Trea Turner ahead of Harper in the sixth. “Righty on righty, he was a better match for me.”
An inning later, Bryson Stott and J.T. Realmuto singled off Danny Young and scored on Cal Stevenson’s two-out double off Reed Garrett. Like Severino, Garrett was content with the full-count pitch he threw Stevenson.
“He put a good swing on it,” Garrett said. “I tip my cap.”
Stevenson cemented his impact on the game a half-inning later when he rose to take extra bases if not a game-tying home run away from J.D. Martinez at the wall in right-center.
Indeed, the Mets didn’t do anything egregiously wrong on this day. We can quibble with how Severino attacked Turner, with how Garrett didn’t go after Stevenson earlier in the at-bat, with how the offense let Allard off the hook earlier and was quieted by the struggling former Met, Taijuan Walker, for three frames.
But Saturday did show the areas where the Phillies still outflank New York. As good as Francisco Lindor has been, as good as the Mets’ offense has been at stages this season, it does not contain a force quite like Harper, capable of turning even very good pitches into souvenirs.
Severino, like most in the Mets’ rotation, has performed above expectations this season — but he’s not a shutdown ace like Zack Wheeler. And New York’s bullpen doesn’t contain the depth of reliable late-game options that Philly’s does. In a one-run game in the seventh, the Phillies turned to Orion Kerkering, the Mets to the combo of Young and Garrett.
Since the end of May, the Mets have shown themselves capable of playing with anybody, and viewed through one lens, their roster looks like one just good enough in each area to succeed — a squad without a glaring weakness. Shift that lens just a little, however, and they look like a team lacking a clear strength, a carrying tool to take them deep into October.
This is what pennant-race baseball should be, what postseason baseball will be if the Mets get there — a nine-inning trial aimed at uncovering the minute differences between the good and the very good. The Mets have 14 games to show they’re up to that challenge. There are no painless losses anymore.
(Photo of Luis Severino reacting after allowing a home run to Bryce Harper: Gregory Fisher / USA Today)
