NEW YORK -- It¡¯s not time to panic, but it is time to play better.
Much better, and soon.
¡°I¡¯d rather you guys say it¡¯s a little early,¡± Bryce Harper said following Wednesday¡¯s 4-3 loss to the Mets in 10 innings at Citi Field. ¡°I don¡¯t like that, just because we should be wanting to play good baseball all year long -- from April all the way to November. Obviously, that¡¯s not going to happen. You¡¯re going to go through ups and downs and you try to stay as even keel as you can. But we¡¯re a good team in here and we expect to win. Winning takes care of it all. Winning takes care of mindset and everything else. We¡¯ve just got to be better.¡±
The Phillies weren¡¯t good this week in New York. The Mets swept the three-game series. Aaron Nola fell to 0-5 on Monday. Cristopher Sánchez left Tuesday¡¯s game after the second inning because of soreness in his left forearm. The offense had just three extra-base hits in the entire series.
The team has lost 10 of its past 16 since starting 7-2.
¡°Not playing good baseball, obviously,¡± Harper said. ¡°We¡¯ve got to figure it out sooner rather than later, right? We¡¯ve got to flush this series as quickly as possible. ¡ We¡¯re obviously not doing our job one through nine [in the lineup]. Timely hitting, we¡¯ve got to be better in those situations obviously. We¡¯re just not getting it done and we need to.¡±
Going back to last season, including the NLDS, it might look like the Mets have widened the gap between themselves and the Phillies, who won the NL East.
Is there a gap between these two teams?
¡°No,¡± Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.
Why not?
¡°Because we¡¯re a good team,¡± he said.
Phillies ace Zack Wheeler allowed two runs in six innings, striking out nine and walking two. He allowed a two-run homer to Brett Baty in the second inning to give the Mets a 2-0 lead.
The Phillies tied the game in the fourth. Nick Castellanos got thrown out at the plate to end the eighth, but they took a 3-2 lead in the 10th on Castellanos¡¯ ground-ball single through a drawn-in infield. The Phillies had the bases loaded in the 10th with one out, but they could not score another run.
Last week, Harper talked about the younger players on the team playing more relaxed and having more fun.
It seems like nobody is having fun these days.
¡°We¡¯ve just got to win,¡± Harper said. ¡°It takes care of everything, right? It takes care of mindset. It takes care of what you¡¯re feeling. It doesn¡¯t matter if one guy is struggling or not. You come to win. Winning takes care of it all. As a team, we just have to be better. It¡¯s a really good Mets team over there. They played good baseball this series obviously. But it doesn¡¯t matter. As a team, we have to really understand what we want to do, how we want to do it, where we want to go as a team. We¡¯ve just got to play better baseball.¡±
Phillies right-hander Jordan Romano allowed two runs in the bottom of the 10th to lose the game.
He has a 13.50 ERA this season.
¡°A lot of season left,¡± Romano said. ¡°We expect to win. Just a little rough patch.¡±
That¡¯s the hope now, just 25 games into the season.
¡°We know what type of team we are, we know how good we are,¡± Wheeler said. ¡°We¡¯ve just got to play better, play more consistently -- all around, everybody, including us starters. It¡¯s just a matter of doing it.¡±
And what gives him the belief they will do it?
¡°Because we¡¯re a good team,¡± he said.