ONE'S BETTER THAN NONE
McNeil’s homer helps Mets avoid being swept in 2nd straight series
If the Mets came through with big hits as consistently as they played tight games, they would be cruising into October.
It might be too late to make a difference, but the Mets finally did both on Sunday night to snap a five-game losing streak.
Jeff McNeil broke a tie game in the seventh inning with a solo home run to lift the Mets to their first win in a week, 3-2 over the Phillies at Citi Field.
The homer — McNeil’s first since Aug. 1, going a career-high 43 games without one — gave the Mets their first lead since Tuesday and ensured they would avoid getting swept for a second straight series.
“It was a big hit,” manager Luis Rojas said. “Those big hits showed up a lot in the first half to win a lot of one-run games. It hasn’t shown up lately. Tonight, it showed up from Jeff.
“Still, as a team, we gotta do a better job with runners in scoring position (1-for-7 on Sunday). We gotta score more runs. But we gotta celebrate these wins, it’s a big win. It’s a good night for Jeff and he can get hot right now, we definitely need that.”
With the lead in hand, Aaron Loup, while lowering his ERA to 1.00 across 54 innings this season, and Edwin Diaz closed the door on the Phillies (76-73) in the final two innings.
Still, the Mets (73-77) wrapped up a damaging week to their playoff hopes after going 1-5 against the Cardinals and Phillies, two teams ahead of them in the postseason chase. Their win on Sunday kept them 5 ½ games back of the Braves for first place in the NL East and seven games back of the Cardinals for the final NL wild card with 12 games left.
“Obviously some other things have to happen, but I think there’s still an opportunity,” said Rich Hill, who gave up two runs over 4 2/3 innings in another solid start. “I always hold onto hope to be able to see that there might be something that could be on the horizon. You never know.”
Rojas said before the game he was guarding against a letdown in the clubhouse, with the fivegame losing streak coming at the most critical time of the Mets’ season — they started the week just three games out of a playoff spot. But he didn’t come away concerned about it.
The Phillies took a 1-0 lead off Hill in the first inning with some aggressive baserunning. Bryce Harper walked and then scored from first on a bloop hustle double to left-center field by J.T. Realmuto.
Harper then hit a sacrifice fly in the fifth inning to make it a 2-0 Phillies lead.
That marked the last batter for Hill, who scattered six hits and a walk while striking out seven. He now has a 3.88 ERA in 11 outings with the Mets since coming over in a trade from the Rays.
The Mets got Hill off the hook in the bottom of the fifth. After McNeil singled and Tomas Nido doubled, Dominic Smith pinch hit and ripped a two-run double off Kyle Gibson to make it 2-2.
Jeurys Familia, Trevor May and Seth Lugo combined to strike out six straight batters until Lugo gave up a single and a walk with two outs in the seventh inning. Loup entered to face Harper and walked the NL MVP contender to load the bases, but came back to get Realmuto to ground out to escape the jam.
That gave way to McNeil’s big blast in the bottom of the inning, a bright spot in what has otherwise been a tough season for the left fielder.
“Home runs definitely feel a lot better when they’re in big spots,” McNeil said. “That one felt really good.
Just going to try to build on that for the rest of the season.”