NEW YORK — Who, Matt Strahm act worried?
There he was, with a team one loss from elimination in the playoffs, having had two less than worthy relief appearances this series, and for a bullpen that has had a lot of less than worthy appearances this series.
And so what?
“We’re nasty,” Strahm said before Game 4 Wednesday at Citi Field. “It’s all good. Anything you do a lot of it gets easier usually so you have less room for error.”
Strahm was referring to the fact that as division rivals, the Phillies and Mets had seen each other so often all season. Thus, hitters know all there is to know about the other guys’ pitchers, including all the nasty ones.
“Whatever I’m needed for, I’m up for,” Strahm said, “and whenever Topper is ready to fire a bullet I’ll be ready.”
As it turned out, Strahm wouldn’t be needed until a Phillies series loss was all but assured. He came in and threw the eighth inning, the Mets just trying to hurry through it, because at the time they were on the verge of what became a series-clinching, 4-1 victory over the Phillies Wednesday night.
It didn’t take long for a quick postmortem to conclude that the Phillies (5 runs scored total in their three series losses) didn’t hit nearly enough, and the Phillies bullpen (how about an 18.00 series ERA for Strahm, which was a little better than the 40.5 for Jeff Hoffman) was … well, bad enough to spark a lot of inner-front office talk during the offseason.
“Very (disappointing,” manager Rob “Topper” Thomson would say. “Some of it was (lack of) execution, and maybe some of it was (the Mets) being familiar with our guys, I don’t know. … But it’s supposed to work both ways.”
Let the nearly non-existent individual offensive stats for the series tell that story. Meanwhile, the pitching again did all it could, which for starters was all that was OK.
It was presumed Thomson was going to be ready to fire from the opening gun, because Suarez threw 53 pitches over his first two innings alone. But he also somehow didn’t allow any runs.
There were three-ball counts to seemingly every hitter he faced. But he kept working out of jams with a little help from a few Mets eager to swing at his slow stuff.
Finally, 97 pitches in at a point in the fifth inning, Thomson made a move, taking out Suarez and bringing Hoffman in to face powerful Pete Alonso. Hoffman, a big part of the way this bullpen had, to that point, allowed eight of 10 inherited runners to score in the series, came in firing.
Pitches, not bullets.
Down went Alonso on strikes, and then Jose Iglesias dribbled one in front of the plate, J.T. Realmuto taking care of that play. That Hoffman escape allowed Suarez to go 4.1 innings without allowing a run, giving up five hits and four walks in the process. But he also struck out eight Mets, a key to keeping them off the scoreboard.
Of course, it wouldn’t last.
“Something that’s unique about this team is how many veterans we have on here and we all are aware of what’s at stake tonight,” Strahm had said. “Nothing needs to be said to anyone, there won’t be no rah-rah. We know what we have to do.”
What they had to do was protect a precious 1-0 lead.
Hoffman couldn’t do that, loading the bases in the sixth inning. In came usual closer Carlos Estevez to face MVP candidate Francisco Lindor, and he drilled an Estevez pitch over the fence for a grand slam.
Everybody in crazy New York knew that score would hold up.
“Offense comes and goes,” Thomson said of his team. “It’s hard to explain.”
But the Mets’ performance in this series wasn’t that difficult to figure out. From June 1 through this series clincher, they went 66-40. Over that same time period … the Phillies were 56-52.
“Their second half was unbelievable,” Thomson said. “They really played well.”
There are, of course, elements to this Mets story which could be seen as similar to the World Series run that the wild card Phillies made two years ago. Reflecting on that, catcher J.T. Realmuto said, “You have to play well, but you also have to have things go your way.”
That said, “They outplayed us,” Realmuto summarized.
