PHILADELPHIA — The Mets have been telling scuffling players and angsty fans to trust the process. The underlying analytics show that the hitters will start to hit again, and the pitchers will throw strikes.
But over three games this weekend in the city where “trust the process” became a catchphrase of sorts, the process didn’t necessarily play out the way the Mets had hoped. A 7-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday night capped a dismal road trip that saw the Amazin’s go 1-5. They lost the series, 2-1, and have lost eight of their last night games.
There was one big offensive outburst Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park, but otherwise, the offense has been light. Couple that with shaky pitching performances and you have a recipe for disaster.
Francisco Lindor supplied the Mets’ only run, homering for the second night in a row. The Mets had previously won the last 28 games in which Lindor homered, one shy of the league record.
Left-hander David Peterson, who, aside from Kodai Senga, has been the most reliable starting pitcher on the staff, barely made it through four innings Sunday. He deftly navigated traffic in the third inning to keep the game scoreless, then coughed up a season-high five earned runs in the fourth.
“I thought overall, especially the second time through [the order], they made some adjustments,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “He was missing arm-side with some of his pitches as well. But yeah, they got him.”
It was the most runs allowed by Peterson since May 15, 2023, a five-inning start in Washington against the Nationals that resulted in a Triple-A demotion. Since undergoing hip surgery following that season, he’s been dominant. Prior to the start of the fourth inning, Peterson was seen stretching his hip on the mound.
Both the pitcher and the manager denied that there was anything wrong with his hip.
“He’s fine,” Mendoza said.
Peterson and catcher Luis Torrens attributed the five earned runs to a lack of execution.
“I don’t know if they made adjustments or whatnot, but I didn’t execute enough pitches,” he said. “And the ones that I didn’t execute the way I wanted to, they took advantage of.”
In his 100th career big league start, Peterson showed no signs of a drop-off early on, retiring the first six batters he faced. In the third, he put two on before helping his own cause by picking Edmundo Sosa off second base for the first out. He got a ground-ball from Johan Rojas for a force-out, and struck out Trea Turner to end the inning.
The Phillies (47-31) hit him hard right away the next inning. Kyle Schwarber led off with a home run to break a scoreless tie, Nick Castellanos doubled to the left field corner, J.T. Realmuto walked and Otto Kemp hit a line drive that went just past the reach of Lindor into left field. Castellanos scored to make it 2-2, and Sosa then got a slider right out of the middle of the plate and put it into the right field seats to clear the bases.
The Mets (46-32) were suddenly down 5-0.
“For the first couple innings, we worked pretty well together,” Torrens said. “It was just that one inning where they got us and we failed to make the necessary adjustments.”
It was the slider that Peterson struggled with the most. One of his best pitches, it repeatedly caught too much of the plate in the fourth inning.
“We just didn’t execute the way that we wanted to,” Torrens said through a team translator. “So I think the most important part right now is to just turn the page and focus on the next outing.”
They called in bullpen reserves Saturday to replenish the ‘pen, and used them all starting in the fifth, bringing in right-handers Chris Devenski, Dedniel Nuñez and Tyler Zuber, the latter of whom gave up two runs in the bottom of the seventh. The Mets had to rest their regular bullpen arms to be able to use them in the next series, which begins Monday.
“I feel like the concern now is more like the state of the bullpen and how much we’ve used those guys,” Mendoza said. “Obviously, we’ve been shuffling a lot of guys, but we got to find a way. We’ve got some really good arms in this room and they’ll get back on track.”
It’s not like Peterson (5-3, five earned runs on six hits, three walks, four strikeouts) had any breathing room. The Mets managed only three hits, all singles, off Jesus Luzardo, who went 6 2.3 innings, walked one and struck out seven. Right-hander Max Lazar served up the homer run to Lindor, his 16th of the season.
Once again, the Mets fell to second place in the NL East, and they have four more division games this week at home against the Atlanta Braves, who swept the Amazins last week before they arrived in Philadelphia. The team leaders and coaches have cautioned against being reactionary, encouraging small adjustments rather than major ones. A veteran group has overcome worse, they know they’ll make it through this stretch.
Still, these last few weeks have shown how frustrating it can be when the process isn’t delivering the results it once did.
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