Canha, Scherzer lead club to 3-game sweep
NEW YORK — Mark Canha hit a go-ahead, two-run homer in his latest blitz of Philadelphia Phillies pitching, Max Scherzer settled down from a shaky first inning to win his third straight decision and the New York Mets completed a three-game sweep of the defending NL champions with a 4-2 victory Thursday.
New York trailed 2-0 before Jeff Mcneil hit an RBI single in the third and Canha homered in the fourth against former Met Taijuan Walker (4-3).
Canha homered and drove in four runs a night earlier and is 6 for 10 with four homers and 11 RBIS in his last three games against the Phillies dating to last season.
While the Mets improved to 30-27, Philadelphia (25-31) dropped a seasonworst six games under .500.
The Phillies are on their fourth losing streak of four or more games.
Scherzer (5-2) fell behind 2-0 in the first after Trea Turner singled with one out and Bryce Harper walked. A double steal led to a run when catcher Francisco Álvarez’s throw skipped into left field for an error, and Nick Castellanos followed with a sacrifice fly.
Scherzer gave up two runs — one earned — and five hits in seven inning, striking out nine and walking one. He threw 71 of 101 pitches for strikes.
With Adam Ottavino and David Robertson rested after pitching on consecutive days, Jeff Brigham threw a perfect eighth. Brooks Raley got two outs and Drew Smith retired pinch-hitter Drew Ellis, making his Phillies debut, on a first-pitch flyout with a man on for his second save.
Philadelphia managed just three runs and 17 hits in the series — just two for extra bases — with 33 strikeouts. Kyle Schwarber was 0 for 10.
Castellanos had three of the Phillies’ six hits in the finale.
Walker hit Starling Marte with a pitch before Canha turned on a thigh-high fastball for his fifth home run this season. New York has homered in 15 consecutive games, the second-longest streak in team history behind 21 in 1996.
Walker threw just 38 of 74 pitches for strikes, giving up three runs, two hits and three walks in four innings.
Mad Max on the clock:
Warming up to start the fifth inning, Scherzer was stopped by umpire Tripp Gibson from throwing his eighth and usually last warmup pitch. The 2-minute, 15-second clock between innings had run down.
He walked over to the plate ump, held out his hands as they talked, then turned around and threw up an arm in disgust.
“Why do we have to be so anal about this, to have the clock up everybody’s face, shoved in everybody’s face, and try to stop out every little single second that’s going through the game?” Scherzer said Thursday after beating the Philadelphia Phillies 4-2. “It’s situations like that that really are frustrating for not only for pitchers, players but even the umpires.”
Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, is not fan of the pitch clock that started this season, which calls for 15 seconds between pitches with no runners on base and 20 seconds when there are runners. He was charged with a balk in spring training for attempting to quick pitch.