PHILADELPHIA — The joke store called, and they’re running out of Mets.
What once held the promise of a respectable season has turned to crud right before manager Terry Collins’ eyes. Don’t look now, but Collins’ crew is seven games below .500 — the same place it was during a game on April 20 when principal owner Fred Wilpon called the Mets a “sh- – – -y” team.
“We’re in a rut and playing pretty bad baseball right now,” David Wright said after a 10-0 loss to the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. “We can’t allow ourselves to just play out the season. Hopefully people realize there’s a lot on the line going into next year, and we need to try and clean it up and play better baseball.”
Wright had a closed-door meeting with Collins in which he expressed his displeasure with the performance of the 60-67 Mets, who lost their fourth straight and 10th in their last 12. A loss tonight would push the Mets eight games below .500 and match their lowest point of the season, when they fell to 5-13 in the hours following Wilpon’s comment to a reporter from the New Yorker.
Last night the Mets couldn’t touch Cliff Lee, and the Phillies feasted against Dillon Gee.
The rookie Gee lasted only 3 2/3 innings and allowed eight earned runs on seven hits and a career-high six walks. The Phillies scored three runs in the second against Gee (11-5) and were in firm control an inning later after John Mayberry Jr.’s two-run homer. Gee’s line was complete after he was charged for three more runs in the fourth.
“It’s probably the worst outing I’ve ever had, to be honest with you,” Gee said.
Lee (14-7) fired seven shutout innings in which he allowed three hits and three walks. It helped the Phillies record their major-league leading 82nd win and 17th shutout of the season.
The Mets certainly aren’t in position to knock their chief NL nemesis, so they might as well praise the Phillies for a job well done this season.
“Since I began playing in the big leagues [in 2003], it’s definitely one of the best teams I’ve seen, and their record shows it,” Jason Bay said before the game. “They are not disappointing anybody.”
Maybe the only drama left in the regular season for the Phillies (82-44) is trying to guess how many games they will win. They are on pace for 105 victories.
It’s no mystery to the Mets. Though the Phillies rank in the middle of the pack offensively in the National League, a rotation that includes workhorses Lee, Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt has carried the load.
Before last night’s game R.A. Dickey considered potential World Series matchups, and put Phillies-Red Sox at the top of his wish list.
“I would want to see us in it, but if we can’t be there, I think that would be a really neat matchup, because Philly has enough offense and Boston has enough pitching,” Dickey said. “It’s a real even matchup. There is a lot of parity.”
Bay was asked about the possibility of the Phillies missing the World Series.
“Would I be surprised? Yeah. I think a lot of people would be,” Bay said. “Anybody can have a bad three-game spell, but that being said, the three guys they are going to send to the mound, there is nobody that would really want to substitute any of those guys. It would be, not shocking, but where we stand right now, that team is poised to go fairly far.”