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Mets spoiled Phillies season by continuing seven-year dominance | Extra Innings

The Phils are 48-81 in their last 129 games against the Mets.

The Mets have dominated the Phillies in recent seasons.
The Mets have dominated the Phillies in recent seasons.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

Unable to complete a sweep of the Miami Marlins, the Phillies woke up this morning still 6 1/2 games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves in the National League East and five games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals for the second wild-card spot. If you're still holding out hope that the Phillies can pull off some kind of miracle, you should know that by this date in 2007, the Phillies had cut the New York Mets' seven-game lead with 17 games to play to just 3 1/2 with 13 to play.

The reality is that the Phillies are fighting the Washington Nationals for second place and that lead sits at one game as the Mets come to town to begin a three-game series tonight at Citizens Bank Park.

You're signed up to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday during the Phillies season. If you like what you're reading, tell your friends it's free to sign up here. I want to know what you think, what we should add, and what you want to read, so send me feedback by email or on Twitter @brookob. Thank you for reading.

—  Bob Brookover  (extrainnings@philly.com)

The Mets’ revenge

The Mets' 2007 collapse that allowed the Phillies to win their first division title in 14 years ranks right up there with the 1964 Phillies and the 1978 Boston Red Sox among the worst late-season meltdowns in major-league history. Rest assured that Mets fans will always painfully remember it. It is probably little consolation to them, but their team has absolutely dominated the Phillies since 2012, winning every season series including this year's.

Heading into tonight's game, the Phillies are 48-81 against the Mets since they last won the National League East and have been outscored by New York by 152 runs in that span. If you had to pick one team most responsible for the Phillies' failure to still be in contention with two weeks remaining, it would have to be the Mets.

It just felt as if the season was over two Sundays ago when the Mets scratched leading Cy Young Award candidate Jacob deGrom and the Phillies still could not win the game at Citi Field. The Phillies are 6-10 against the Mets this season. Reverse that record, and the Phillies would be only 2 1/2 games behind the Braves and one out of the wild-card race.

The Phillies have been particularly hideous against the Mets at home since 2012, going 20-44 in that seven-year stretch. The Mets have hardly been a great team over the last seven years. They've been to the postseason twice in the last seven years and went to the World Series three years ago, but they have been below .500 in five of the last seven seasons and have gone 179-207 against the rest of the NL East during that time.

Because the Mets scratched deGrom two Sundays ago, the Phillies will not have to face him in this three-game series, but that really doesn't matter anymore.

The rundown

Things got off to a great start for the Phillies on Sunday when the scoreboard flashed that the Atlanta Braves were losing at home to Washington before Nick Pivetta had thrown a pitch against the Marlins. The righthander appeared to have dominating stuff in the early innings and Cesar Hernandez opened the game with a homer, his second in two days. It was just a big tease as the Phillies lost by 6-4 to the lowly Marlins.

When Phillies managing partner John Middleton signed off on team president Andy MacPhail's decision to hire Matt Klentak as general manager after the 2015 season, it served as a mandate that baseball operations were going to be done a lot differently in the future. With the hiring of Gabe Kapler, the analytical changes manifested on the field this season and stirred plenty of debate. Here's my column on the subject.

If you wanted to see something different, you should have been at Saturday's game, a 5-4 Phillies win over the Marlins, when Gabe Kapler pinch-hit for Scott Kingery in the second inning before the rookie infielder even had a chance to bat.

Klentak said Sunday that the front office has done its own autopsy on why this once-promising season crashed and burned after a four-game sweep of the Miami Marlins in early August. Spoiler alert: He does not have any concrete answers.

Kapler has resisted the idea of using an "opener" to start a game, but he said over the weekend that it does intrigue him.

I wrote over the weekend about how Odubel Herrera went ice cold after his early-season 45-game on-base streak and how that might affect what the Phillies do in the future in center field.

Still looking for a reason to watch the Phillies? Our Matt Breen suggests you focus on rookie shortstop J.P. Crawford and how he finishes the year.

Columnist Bob Ford weighed in on the Phillies' season over the weekend by correctly pointing out that they were pretty consistent in that they played ugly baseball when they were winning and when they started losing.

Important dates

Tonight: Jake Arrieta faces Zach Wheeler, 7:05 p.m.
Tomorrow: Aaron Nola goes for 17th win vs. Steven Matz, 7:05 p.m.
Wednesday: Zach Eflin faces Thor (Noah Syndergaard), 6:05 p.m.
Thursday: Phils, in need of a sweep, open four-game series in Atlanta, 7:35 p.m.
Monday: Final road series of the season begins in Colorado.

Stat of the day

During a meeting with the media before Sunday's game, Klentak said he felt that the Phillies pitchers from the big leagues through their minor-league system did a "very good" job of controlling the strike zone this season.

One statistic that does a good job of monitoring that is WHIP, walks plus hits per inning. The Phillies have a 1.26 WHIP, tied for 11th with Milwaukee in the majors and tied for seventh in the National League. Phillies pitchers have allowed 445 walks, the 10th most in baseball, and 1,234 hits, the 12th fewest in baseball, in 1,327 2/3 innings.

The Phillies' four full-season minor-league affiliates also did well in the WHIP department. Triple-A Lehigh Valley posted a 1.26 WHIP, tied for second in the International League. Double-A Reading, at 1.36, was the weakest affiliate in the WHIP department, finishing fifth in the Eastern League. High-A Clearwater, at 1.23, was first in the Florida State League, and low-A Lakewood, at 1.16, was first in the South Atlantic League.

From the mailbag

Send questions by email or on Twitter @brookob.

Hard to believe that Dylan Cozens was the other "Bash Brother" with Rhys Hoskins in Reading and Lehigh Valley. Hoskins has come so far, while Cozens is still sitting on the bench.
What's the future for Cozens? I love his potential, his raw power, his speed, his throwing arm. Yes, he strikes out too much (but who doesn't).

In the crowded Phillies outfield, will he ever get a real chance to play? Will he be a fourth outfielder? Will he be a career minor league star? Or trade bait?

He's still young. I would  hate to see him go to another organization and become another Aaron Judge.

Thank you
Greg S, via email

Answer: Thanks for the question Greg — it's a good one. We don't hear much talk about Cozens, but his numbers in his repeat year at Lehigh Valley actually represented some improvement. He improved his batting average from .210 to .246, his on-base percentage from .301 to .345, and his OPS from .719 to .873, which would have been the best in the league if he had enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title.

It will be fascinating to see what the Phillies do with him going forward. I'm sure they'd be willing to include him in the right trade and his raw power is an attractive quality. You also make an excellent point that he is still young.  Cozens, 24, is more than a year younger than Hoskins.