PHILADELPHIA — First place was fun for the Mets while it lasted, but now there’s a new team to chase in the NL East.
The Mets’ 90-day stay in the division’s penthouse concluded Friday night, their bats silent in an all-too-familiar scene for a team challenged to score runs. Now they have to catch the Phillies, following a fifth loss in six games, 4-2 at Citizens Bank Park.
The Phillies, with their sixth straight victory, moved a half-game ahead of the Mets in the NL East. The Phillies last sat alone in first place on May 7, before the Mets tied them the following day.
“You don’t love it, because we have held the lead for so long,” Brandon Nimmo said. “But you also understand there’s still a lot of games left to be played and we can go through our hot stretch as well, so you try not to worry too much about [the standings] right now. But it’s not great … we would have loved to keep [first place] for the whole season.”
On Friday, the Mets went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position against Kyle Gibson and the Phillies’ bullpen. Gibson, a right-hander acquired at the trade deadline from Texas, allowed one run on four hits and four walks over six innings.
Bryce Harper all but sealed it for the Phillies with a monstrous two-run homer to center off Edwin Diaz in the eighth that buried the Mets. Diaz, who returned after two days away from the team on the paternity list, hadn’t pitched since last Saturday. Harper was serenaded by chants of “M-V-P” by the crowd as he rounded the bases.
“We know this is a big series, we know the last series was a big series,” Nimmo said. “We are not going out there trying to lose, so it sucks. It’s not fun at all.”
Marcus Stroman threw 91 pitches over five innings, in which he allowed two earned runs on five hits with five strikeouts and one walk. It was an improvement over his Sunday start against the Reds, in which he allowed four earned runs over 5 ²/₃ innings.
Gibson’s first major league RBI, on a single in the fifth, put the Mets in a 2-1 hole. Brad Miller led off the inning with a towering fly ball to right field, which Michael Conforto couldn’t reach, and it caromed off the fence for a triple. The Phillies scored their first run in the second inning, on Didi Gregorius’ 10th homer of the season.
“We’re just going through a rut, hoping to keep the same confidence and come out of it,” Stroman said. “We played really well in the beginning of the season with a bunch of guys out and now we’re going through it. We’re going to have to figure it out soon and get moving in the right direction.”
After leaving the bases loaded three times on Thursday, the Mets continued the trend in the fourth inning. Tomas Nido walked to load the bases, after Conforto singled and Jonathan Villar reached on Miller’s error, but that was all for the Mets in the fourth: Gibson struck out Stroman and got Nimmo to hit into an inning-ending double play. Nido also hit into an inning-ending double play in the sixth, after Conforto had reached on a leadoff walk.
“Going 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, that leads to the result of not coming back and winning a game like this,” manager Luis Rojas said.
Dominic Smith delivered a two-out RBI single in the third that tied it 1-1. It continued a recent surge for Smith, who extended his hitting streak to nine games (during which he was hitting .355 entering play).
Nimmo and Pete Alonso each walked in the inning, before Smith stroked a single to right field for his 49th RBI of the season.
Villar homered in the ninth off Ian Kennedy for the Mets’ final run.
“Any one person can be the spark and get us out of this,” Nimmo said. “But it’s not a one-day fix.”