GAME RECAP: Mets Edge Phillies 6-5
Matt Harvey delivered
another six quality innings Tuesday in his first home start since 2013, leading
the Mets to a chaotic, 6-5 win over the Phillies at Citi Field. Mets manager
Terry Collins was ejected and Harvey received a warning for plunking Chase Utley, who paced the Phillies with two home
runs and three RBIs. But the Mets outslugged the Phillies on the night,
knocking starter David Buchanan out of
the game in the fifth. The Mets, who won their third game in a row to improve
to 5-3, will look for a sweep in Wednesday's series finale.
OTHER NOTES FROM THE DAY:
- Buchanan is
still looking for his first solid start of the season. He lasted just three
innings in his season debut last week, then allowed nine hits and five
runs in 5 2/3 innings. He allowed four of those runs in his first two
innings.
- The Phillies
lost a challenge in the fifth inning when they thought Carlos Ruiz tagged
Lucas Duda before
he touched home plate. It took 1 minute, 24 seconds for replay officials
to confirm that Duda's right leg touched the plate without Ruiz applying a
tag.
- After facing
fireballers Jacob deGrom and Matt Harvey in back-to-back games, the
Phillies will be wise to sit back against the crafty Niese, who threw more
changeups in his first start than any other pitch.
- Williams --
who resurrected his career with a 2.83 ERA in nine starts for Philadelphia
last season -- is one of just six active players from the state of Hawaii.
Astros pitcher Scott Feldman, Red Sox and former Phillies outfielder Shane
Victorino, Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong, Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki
and Rays Minor League pitcher Kirby Yates are the others. Williams is the
only one from Honolulu.
NEXT GAME:
The three-game series
between the Mets and Phillies concludes tonight on Jackie Robinson Day at Citi
Field, home of the 19,000-square-foot rotunda built to remember the legend who
broke the color barrier. The ballpark's main entrance features a nine-foot
sculpture of Robinson, who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947-56. Jon
Niese, who fell victim to errors in his first start, will start for the Mets.
He will be opposed by veteran Philly righty Jerome Williams, who settled for a
no-decision his first time around. Right-hander Jerome Williams promised he would fix the problems
that ailed him at the end of Spring Training and he appeared to follow through
with a strong showing Friday against the Nationals. The trick will be repeating
that success in Wednesday's series finale against the Mets at Citi Field.
PHILS PHACTS:
Strong Beginning To The Season – Chase Utley's first week of the 2015 season will not
be remembered as a strong one. "Yeah, you could say that," Utley
said. "It's not how you envision coming out of Spring Training." Utley
entered the Phillies' 6-5
loss to the Mets on Tuesday at Citi Field
hitting .091 (2-for-22), with three RBIs, two walks and six strikeouts. It was
the worst start of his career through the Phillies' first seven games, but
everything changed against Mets ace
Matt Harvey. Utley homered in the first inning and
singled in a run in the third inning before Harvey drilled him in the back with
a pitch in the fifth. Harvey may have retaliated after Phillies right-hander
David Buchanan hit two Mets batters (
Wilmer Flores and
Michael Cuddyer) on their hands. "Getting hit by
a pitch is part of the game," Utley said. "It's not the first time
I've been hit by a pitch, and it won't be the last." Did it hurt? "It
kind of grazed me," he said. But Utley kept going. He homered in the
eighth inning off Mets left-hander
Sean Gilmartin to finish the night 3-for-3 with three
RBIs. Utley's first-inning homer snapped a 175 at-bat homerless streak, the
longest drought of his career. He had not homered since Aug. 10, also against
the Mets. He is now hitting .293 (54-for-184) with 11 doubles, two triples, 11
home runs, 35 RBIs and a .927 OPS in 47 games at Citi Field. "Have I had
some success here?" Utley said. "Obviously, it has a great hitters'
background, big park, there's a lot of hits here." The Phillies just hope
they have Utley back on the right track. They need him badly. "It was just
a game he needed to play, to get under his belt," Phillies manager Ryne
Sandberg said. "It was just a matter of time. Sometimes when a great
player faces another great player, it brings the best out of him. That was our
guy today. Chase rose to the occasion, rose to the challenge of facing a very
good pitcher. I think he stepped up and gave us a boost early and gave us
another boost with a base hit to drive in a run. That's the type of player
Chase is and he showed that tonight."
Post-Game Questions – Phillies
second baseman Chase Utley came alive
Tuesday at Citi Field as the Phillies homered four times, but plenty of other
interesting things happened to them in their 6-5 loss. Three things begged
questions: Why did Freddy bunt? Phillies right-hander David Buchanan started the fifth inning with a double
into the right-field corner. Odubel Herrera flied out to right for the first out,
which advanced Buchanan to third. Freddy Galvis then popped out to Mets catcher Travis d'Arnaud on a failed bunt attempt. "It
was a safety squeeze attempt with the first baseman just moving back, a good
pitch to do it on," Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg said. It is the
Phillies' fifth failed bunt attempt since Saturday. "We're going to
continue to do what we do," Sandberg said about working on their bunting.
"We do it inside the cages off fastball machines and off breaking pitches.
The pitchers do it every day at home on the field. We'll continue with that
routine and hopefully the results will show." Why double-switch?
Sandberg employed a double-switch with runners on first and second and two outs
in the sixth inning. He had left-hander Jake Diekman replace Buchanan and Jeff Francoeur replace Grady Sizemore in right field. Diekman finished the
inning and Francoeur hit to lead off the seventh, but the Phillies had
right-hander Dustin McGowan pitch
the seventh inning. McGowan served up a first-pitch home run to left-handed
hitter Lucas Duda to make it
6-3. Theoretically, Diekman could have remained in the game to face the lefty
before leaving the game. "I did it just in case," Sandberg said about
the double switch. "I was going to have Frenchy bat ninth anyway, so it
was just a safety just in case. Diek has had some work. I just wanted a fresh
inning for McGowan, with the workload Diek's been doing, that was kind of his
role tonight." Sandberg later said he also wanted Francoeur on the field
for defensive purposes. Testing Recker at third? Ben Revere said he considered starting the ninth
inning with a bunt toward third baseman Anthony Recker, who is a catcher by trade and had
never played third base in his career. But he decided against it when facing
Mets closer Jeurys Familia. "He's
tough to bunt off," Revere said. "His ball is sinking a lot at 98
mph. It's kind of tough. If anybody else was in there I would I have thought
about it, but [Recker] was playing way in, too. So I was trying to smack one by
him, but I didn't want to pop up a bunt and waste an out."
The Future Of Baseball – Tony
Reagins has spent decades in the game of baseball, and he's worked in
everything from marketing to baseball operations. Reagins, formerly the general
manager of the Angels, has taken on a new assignment with Major League Baseball
as the senior vice president of youth programs, and he took some time Tuesday
to discuss his plans for the future. Reagins, under new Commissioner Rob
Manfred, will be in charge of consolidating the league's relationships with
youth, high school and college baseball organizations around the country.
Reagins attended the Civil
Rights Game instructional clinic Tuesday at
Rancho Cienega Recreation Center, and he spoke a bit about Jackie Robinson, the
Urban Youth Academies and the future of the game.
MLB.com: Can you tell
us a bit about your new role with MLB?
Tony Reagins: We are really
excited about this opportunity. It's one where there's an opportunity to change
lives at the grass roots level. It's an opportunity to enhance lives and give
kids an opportunity to play baseball around the country in all communities. We're
really excited about the opportunity and it's one that we plan to grow. It's
one that's really important to Commissioner Manfred and one we take very, very
seriously. We're excited. We think there's a lot of growth potential, and we
have a chance to impact lives in a positive way.
MLB.com: Is it
refreshing and fun for you to work with kids after being at the big league
level?
Reagins: It is, because that's what baseball is all about. It's a
kid's game. There's an innocence to it. I'm just excited to be able to touch
lives. If we can offer baseball to all kids in all communities, you can't lose
with that. We can't wait to hit the ground running. We already have a number of
programs in place that we plan to build upon. We just can't wait to get
started.
MLB.com: How important is it to you to emphasize being in the
community?
Reagins: Extremely important. It's not just to be in the
community, but to be a part of the community, and to be a part of the community
for a long-term basis. We obviously have academies around the country in place
today, and there are plans to even grow that. But we want to not just be
inserted into the community. We want to stay in it. That's really important.
MLB.com:
Can you talk a little bit about today's event in relation to Jackie Robinson
and the Civil Rights Game? It's Jackie Robinson Day [today], here in Los
Angeles, with Jackie's team.
Reagins: It's special. When you hear the
stories [of what] Jackie Robinson went through. ... I had the chance to work
with Preston Gomez, who was a coach with Jackie, and we talked at length about
Jackie and what he went through in being the only person of color on the
Dodgers at that time. Not being able to shower in the same shower, eat in the
same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels as his counterparts. Those are
powerful experiences. To fast-forward to this where kids have the opportunity
to play baseball, I have an opportunity to do what I'm doing. So many others
that have gone before me and have had tremendous opportunites to this game. You
can attribute most of it to Jackie Robinson.
MLB.com: Do you think that
the kids understand the opportunity in front of them?
Reagins: We have
to keep in mind that the kids are still kids. I think they still have to go
through life's experiences, but it's important to give them the opportunity and
to insert knowledge at the same time. Knowledge is king. If we can educate and
give these kids an opportunity to gain that knowledge -- about not only the
game of baseball but life in general -- we're ahead of the game.
MLB.com:
Does it always help to have former players here to show the kids how to play?
Reagins:
This is the part of the game that is extremely important, where we have former
players and former coaches coming out on an afternoon where they don't have to
come out. They're showing that they're supportive of what we're doing and what
we're trying to accomplish. They care about kids, and they care about the
legacy of baseball. That speaks volumes about the individuals that are here and
about the Dodgers' organization for really being a part of this program and for
providing this baseball field as a renovation project.
MLB.com: Can you
talk to us about the growth of the Urban Youth Academies?
Reagins: It is
important. I think what you see is that given the opportunity -- in Compton,
it's 2006 when we started -- but given the opportunity, there's ballplayers out
here. Some players didn't even know there was an opportunity to play. Given the
opportunity and given a chance to play, players can have a chance to go to the
Major Leagues. It's exciting, being able to see players develop and get better
on a day-to-day basis. And I think we're just scratching the surface of what it
can be.
THE BEGINNING
The
Phillies are starting the season better than expected and are now in a
competitive position in the NL east at 3-5. Given the departures, aging stars,
injuries, and performance this spring, don’t expect their competitive place in
the standings to last. All time, the Phillies are 35-27-1 on this day.
