The Mets are bad, but the Phillies are worse.
In the epic battle for fourth place in the NL East, the Mets at least caught the routine fly balls Friday night. The same was not true of the Phillies.
Left fielder Grady Sizemore dropped Juan Lagares’ fly ball with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh inning, opening the door for the Mets in their 4-1 victory at Citi Field.
Lagares’ fly to left should have been the third out of the seventh, but Sizemore’s drop allowed two runs to score, giving the Mets a 3-1 lead. Eric Campbell stole home later in the inning on the back end of a double steal. It was the Mets’ first steal of home since May 15, 2011, when Jason Pridie accomplished the feat at Houston.
“You take every gift you can get right now,” manager Terry Collins said after the Mets scored three runs in an inning without a hit for the first time since July 25, 1999 against the Cubs.
In his major league debut, 20-year-old Dilson Herrera went 0-for-3 and committed a fielding error at second base in the ninth.
The Mets (63-72) moved 1 ½ games ahead of the basement-dwelling Phillies, whom they have beaten in 12 of 17 meetings this season.
Jacob deGrom (7-6) lasted seven innings in which he allowed one unearned run on four hits with a walk and three strikeouts.
“Location was really good all night with all my pitches,” said deGrom, 7-2 with a 2.12 ERA over his last 11 starts.
The rookie pitcher sailed into the seventh, but ran into trouble after a Lucas Duda throwing error put runners on first and second with nobody out. Cody Asche’s RBI single made it 1-1 before deGrom escaped the inning by getting Domonic Brown to hit into a double play.
Travis d’Arnaud’s RBI single in the fourth produced the game’s first run. David Wright singled to begin the rally.