Another Phillies' loss gives them worst record in NL since Aug. 18

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Updated: 8:03 p.m.

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NEW YORK — Mother Nature smiled on the Phillies on Sunday afternoon and sprinkled just enough rain on Citi Field to make the playing surface sloppy, but not so sloppy that a baseball game couldn’t be played.

The New York Mets, long buried in the division standings, did a wise thing and scratched Jacob deGrom, franchise asset and one of the very best pitchers in baseball, from the start shortly before game time. It made no sense to have the right-hander risk blowing out a groin muscle on a wet mound when he could slide back into the rotation on a dry day and resume his quest for the National League Cy Young award.

DeGrom has a majors-best 1.68 ERA so news of his scratch went over in the Phillies’ clubhouse like a month’s worth of free lunches at a five-star restaurant. Bring it on. It was a grand opportunity for the Phillies and they muffed it. Badly. The Mets trotted out five pitchers — four of them rookies — to replace deGrom and they proceeded to beat the Phillies, 6-4, in the rain (see first take).

Actually, the Phillies did a little beating of themselves. Starting pitcher Vince Velasquez was presented with a nice, 2-0 lead in the first inning thanks to Rhys Hoskins’ 30th homer. The Mets cut into that lead in the bottom of the first inning and in the bottom of the fifth it completely disappeared as Velasquez could not retire a batter in the inning before manager Gabe Kapler lifted him.

The bottom of the fifth went this way for Velasquez: Double, hit batsman on an 0-2 pitch, RBI single by Jeff McNeil, three-run homer by Michael Conforto.

“I was missing spots the whole game and the (weather) conditions got the best of me,” Velasquez said. “I can’t let that happen.”

The Phillies had just seven hits on the day and only two after the third inning. Corey Oswalt, the Mets’ spot starter, gave up five hits over three innings.

And so the Phillies lost another series. They have not won a series since Aug. 2-5, when they swept four games from the Marlins to go 15 games over .500. They are 11-20 since then. And since Aug. 18, they have the NL’s worst record at 6-14.

It’s difficult to even believe they are still in the hunt for the NL East title. But that is the state of the division. Neither the Phils nor the Atlanta Braves have taken advantage of opportunities to put the division away, but the Braves are getting closer. With a 9-5 win on Sunday in Arizona, the Braves took a 4 ½-game lead.  

If we’ve learned anything about manager Gabe Kapler in his first year, it’s that he’s always positive.

And he was after a 2-4 road trip dropped his club 74-68.

“I'll start by saying we turn the page quickly and look forward to getting back to Philadelphia where we've played really good baseball all year long,” he said after Sunday’s loss. “So we will come out tomorrow having turned the page.”

With 20 games left, Kapler still believes his team is “in a good position to strike.”

Why?

“I believe in the talent in that room,” he said. “I've said that from Day 1. That doesn't change when we don't perform at our best on a road trip. And we didn't perform well on this road trip.”

The Phillies lost two of three in Miami and two of three in New York. The Marlins and Mets are the bottom two teams in the division. The Phils are a combined 15-17 against those two clubs this season. Meanwhile, the Braves are 26-9 against those teams.

There's your division.

While Kapler downplayed the Mets’ change of starting pitchers —  “Every major league pitcher is tough,” he said — Hoskins did not. He was ready to face deGrom.

“As a competitor you like facing guys like that, guys like (Max) Scherzer and (Clayton) Kershaw, but in a big game, obviously, you like not having to face him,” he said.

When asked if he viewed the game as a missed opportunity, Hoskins took a wider view.

“Yeah, we lose another series, that’s what makes it a missed opportunity,” he said. “Not because of deGrom. We didn’t beat somebody else and it was just another series we let slip away.”

Hoskins admitted that it was difficult to believe the Phillies have gone 0-9-1 in their last 10 series.

“I think at times we have played some pretty good baseball and there have also been times when we haven’t and, obviously, that adds up over a longer period of time,” he said. “But on the positive side of things, we are still well within striking distance coming down the last three weeks here. I still think there is good baseball ahead of us and if we get hot as a team anything can happen in the last couple of weeks.”

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