Phillies Plan Working Better Than Brodie Van Wagenen’s
The second place Philadelphia Phillies are red hot. With their win tonight against the New York Mets, they’ve now won 10 out of their last 11.
Tonight, the former Cy Young winners, Rick Porcello and Jake Arrieta, who aren’t that anymore, pitched well and to a 2-2 stalemate through six. The Mets two runs coming off an opposite field two run homer by Michael Conforto.
Left field love from the lefty. #LGM pic.twitter.com/xaJtyv7rN0
— New York Mets (@Mets) September 5, 2020
But the Mets couldn’t pull out the win because the Phillies are a better. You see they go to the top of the free agent market, and they use their top prospects to get players who merit it. They built real rotation depth, and they also kept prospects in reserve to address their bullpen issues.
The Mets go searching for discounts. They throw away prospects needlessly. They never address the bullpen by trade.
This left Jared Hughes in a bad spot. He’s just not a two inning reliever. He shouldn’t be going 40+ pitches. In his career, batters have a .900 OPS against him.
After allowing a run in the seventh, he stayed in for the eighth. He ran out of gas allowing two more runs putting the Mets down 5-2.
The Mets had their chance in the eighth. Dominic Smith hit an RBI single to pull the Mets to within 5-3. There were runners on first and second with one out.
Robinson Cano, Van Wagenen’s biggest trade acquisition, lined out. Pete Alonso then popped out to end the inning.
Meanwhile, new Phillies closer, Brandon Workman, recently obtained from the Red Sox, earned the save for the Phillies. Instead of being dismayed by this, just remember Steve Cohen is buying the team, and he can hire a good GM to turn things around.
Game Notes: The Mets DFA’d Billy Hamilton to make room for Erasmo Ramirez. Hamilton is the players the Mets obtained for Jordan Humphreys.