Opportunity knocked, but no one was home for Phillies in sobering loss to Mets

Lochlahn March, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Sep 19, 2026

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — Bryson Stott flung his helmet to the ground, hard enough that part of it broke off and bounced away on the grass beyond first base.

He had hit a rollover ground ball to second base to end the top of the seventh inning, stifling the rally the Phillies had been brewing without a run to show for it.

The Phillies came through with five hits with runners in scoring position Saturday against the Mets, but they still didn’t capitalize as much as they could have. And the missed opportunities stood out as their bullpen struggled yet again. In the 10-3 Phillies loss to New York, Brooks Raley was charged with two earned runs and Orion Kerkering gave up four.

Andrew Painter, starting opposite his former high school teammate Christian Scott, was strong for the first four innings. But things unraveled quickly in the fifth. A four-pitch leadoff walk to Marcus Semien and a Brett Baty single came back to bite him when Francisco Alvarez hit a three-run homer to the opposite field.

Another bullpen implosion worsened matters in the sixth. After Painter secured the first out of the inning, striking out Bo Bichette, Raley entered to face a pocket of Mets left-handers.

But 22 pitches later, Raley departed again without securing an out. Two walks and two singles allowed New York to add to their lead and left bases loaded for Chase Shugart. It didn’t help that Justin Crawford initially misread the single from Baty and took a roundabout route to the line drive, allowing it to short-hop into his glove rather than making an out.

When Shugart took over, he got a quick pop-up for the overdue second out, but then issued a bases-loaded walk to nine-hole hitter Ronny Mauricio to force in another run.

The Phillies scratched across a run in the fourth on a ground-rule double from Bryce Harper and a single from Alec Bohm. They tacked on two more with a fifth-inning rally — using three singles, a double and a sacrifice fly — but Stott struck out on a slider in the dirt to strand a pair.

A day after Kerkering had given up a back-breaking homer to Juan Soto that sank the Phillies, 6-3, against the Mets on Friday, interim manager Don Mattingly tossed him right back into the fire. Mattingly often likes to go back to a pitcher after a tough outing to help him flush it quicker, but on this occasion the strategy did not work out.

Kerkering struggled to command his pitches and the Mets tagged him for four runs on four hits, two walks and a wild pitch.

Every Phillies pitcher walked at least one batter, for a total of seven free passes given to the Mets.