Dillon Gee was awful against the Phillies when he faced them two weeks ago but isn’t concerned there will be a carryover effect when he meets them again tonight at Citi Field.
It helps that the righty had his best outing of the season Sunday, when he pitched 5 2/3 shutout innings against the Nationals.
“Before I kind of got away from throwing my changeup, which is my best pitch,” Gee said Thursday after the Mets’ 3-2 loss to the Dodgers. “I was relying more on my slider, which was really my worst, so against Washington we just went back to being the pitcher I was before.”
Gee lasted just three innings against the Phillies on April 9 at Citizens Bank Park and allowed seven earned runs on 10 hits. In seven career appearances against the Phillies, Gee is 3-4 with a 7.75 ERA.
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Lucas Duda batted cleanup for the first time this season, but manager Terry Collins indicated the move might have been just for one day. Duda finished 1-for-4 with a single.
Ike Davis was shifted to sixth. Davis is batting .174 with four homers and seven RBIs.
“We’ve got to get Ike going,” Collins said. “We’re heading into May and we’ve got to get him swinging like he’s capable.”
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Jon Niese threw his side session as originally scheduled and remains on track to make his scheduled start against the Phillies on Sunday. Niese departed his start against the Dodgers on Tuesday after a Mark Ellis comebacker left a contusion on his lower right leg.
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Jordany Valdespin, who beat the Dodgers with a grand slam in the 10th inning on Wednesday, was seen photographing yesterday’s back page of The Post, which screamed: “Spinsanity!”
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Marlon Byrd whiffed in the eighth inning to give him a strikeout in nine consecutive games, the longest streak of his career. Byrd has 13 total strikeouts during that stretch.
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Zack Wheeler, pitching last night for Triple-A Las Vegas, was tagged for five runs on six hits — two of them home runs — in five-plus innings against Tacoma. He walked three and struck out seven.