PHILADELPHIA — Carlos Torres needed just two pitches to undo all his team’s hard work in Saturday’s late innings.
For the second time in five days, the Mets were left to exit the field while the home team celebrated, as Kevin Frandsen’s homer leading off the bottom of the ninth against Torres gave the Phillies an 8-7 victory at Citizens Bank Park.
Wasted was a wild comeback by the Mets, who trailed 7-1 in the seventh inning and had scored twice in the ninth against Jonathan Papelbon to tie the game.
Frandsen hammered a 1-0 fastball over the left-field fence to end it. The blast came five days after the Mets watched Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman beat them with a walkoff two-run homer in the ninth inning at 1:22 a.m.
”It was a huge team effort,” Torres said. “It was just unfortunate that pitch got away from me.”
Jordany Valdespin homered against Papelbon to bring the Mets within a run in the ninth before David Wright reached on Michael Young’s error to put the tying run on base. Then, on an 0-2 pitch to Daniel Murphy with two outs, Wright took off for second. With Jimmy Rollins racing to cover the bag, Murphy slapped a shot through the vacated shortstop hole, and Wright didn’t stop running until he had scored the tying run. Wright received help from Ben Revere’s bobble in center field.
”The ball just seemed to slow down in the outfield and why not take a chance with two outs?” Wright said. “It worked out pretty good for about five minutes.”
Dillon Gee pitched better when he was competing for a job. In his first start since Jon Niese was placed on the disabled list with a partially torn left rotator cuff — leaving the Mets with five starters for as many spots in the rotation — Gee reverted to his disappointing May form.
The right-hander was blistered for three home runs over five innings but escaped with the no-decision. Gee mostly couldn’t handle Ryan Howard, who homered twice against him and finished with four RBIs. Howard has 10 homers this season, four of which have come against Gee.
”That guy definitely has me,” Gee said. “It seems like no matter where I throw, he hits it out of the ballpark. Hopefully I can do better for the team next time and we continue to win.”
The Mets (29-42) had a two-game winning streak snapped, but will have hopes of still winning the series when ace Matt Harvey faces John Lannan today.
In each of his previous four starts, with the threat of a demotion to the bullpen looming as the Mets prepared for Zack Wheeler’s arrival, Gee allowed two earned runs or fewer and worked into the seventh inning. But yesterday he was in trouble from the start. Overall, Gee surrendered six runs, five earned, on eight hits over five innings.
The Phillies appeared to seize control of the game in the fifth with consecutive homers by Young and Howard that put the Mets in a 6-1 hole. Howard had homered leading off the fourth and then returned the next inning, after Young had homered leading off, to clear the right-field fence. Greg Burke allowed a run in the sixth to extend the Phillies’ lead to 7-1.
Gee surrendered two runs in the first, one of which was unearned because of John Buck’s passed ball. Chase Utley and Young singled in succession and advanced to second and third on the passed ball before Howard delivered a two-run single.
The Mets rallied with four runs in the seventh to pull within 7-5. Eric Young Jr.’s two-run double was the inning’s big hit, after Omar Quintanilla delivered an RBI single. Another run scored on Valdespin’s RBI fielder’s choice.
”We’ve got to take some positives from this game — we came back and made it a baseball game,” manager Terry Collins said. “We hung in there and got big hits and just couldn’t hold on.”
mpuma@nypost.com