Do the Phillies own the Mets this season? It’s hard to say. Let’s go to the tape from the ninth inning of tonight’s game:

Yup. That’s six straight wins for the Phillies over the Mets, a team that I look to for solace every time I’m feeling down in the dumps. To their credit, the Mets never disappoint. Dating back to June 12, the Phillies are 2-11 against teams that aren’t the Mets, and yet, they are 5-0 against the Mets. It seriously feels like this team invents new ways to lose every night, including on nights when they’re not supposed to lose.

Vince Velasquez, who came into tonight’s game with a 4.83 ERA as a starter this season, against reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom? A classic mismatch, but perhaps the result–a 7-2 Phillies win–wasn’t all that surprising as the Mets are now somehow only 5-13 in deGrom’s 18 starts this season. Even crazier, they are 19-30 in his starts dating back to the start of last season despite the fact that he has been one of baseball’s truly elite starting pitchers in that span.

Their latest missed opportunity with deGrom on the mound came after seven brilliant innings tonight in which he surrendered only two earned runs on three hits to go along with 10 strikeouts. Here was the entirety of the Phillies’ offense through six innings:

A leadoff homer. That was it. All of it. In fact, that was the Phillies’ only hit through six innings. They had eight hits over the final three innings.


The Phils tied it up in the seventh inning before, of course, almost predictably exploding for five runs in the ninth. Since June 1, the Mets’ bullpen has allowed 77 earned runs in 92 innings pitched (a 7.53 ERA), and, of course, it was Jay Bruce with the go-ahead RBI in the ninth–his second back-breaking hit against his former team in just a little over a week. The Phillies would go on to tack on a few more, and, well, I think this kid, who probably speaks for Mets fans everywhere, can take it from here: