Blast from the Past: Former Met Ty Wigginton got "Wiggy with it" with a four RBI game against the Mets
The Mets scored twice in the top of the first inning off of Phillies’ started Cole Hamels as Ike Davis smacked a two-run homerun to right field to bring around David Wright who had singled in front of him.
Mike Pelfrey started for the Mets who were looking for their first sweep of the Phillies since 2006, but Pelfrey worked in and out of trouble all afternoon. In the bottom of the first, pesky Juan Pierre reached via single and worked his way around the bases to trim the Mets’ lead in half to 2-1.
From that point on it became a pitching duel between Hamels and Pelfrey. Hamels worked easily through the Mets lineup by retiring the side 1-2-3 in the second, third, fifth and sixth innings with help from a double play and a pickoff of Wright in that stretch.
Pelfrey on the other hand stranded two runners on in the second, one in the third, two in the fourth, and one each in the fifth in the sixth. Most unconventional but it worked as Pelfrey kept the Mets up by a score of 2-1 all the way to the seventh inning.
The Mets’ offense continued to struggle to string together any consecutive number of hits as Hamels began to show signs of tiring. In the bottom of the seventh, Pelfrey was pulled in favor of Ramon Ramirez who got Shane Victorino to fly out. Jimmy Rollins and Hunter Pence struck back-to-back singles and moved up to second and third on a wild pitch.
Former Met Ty Wigginton stepped up to the plate and sent a deep fly ball to right field that allowed Rollins to trot home with the tying run at 2-2. Laynce Nix went opposite field and nearly missed a two run homerun that Scott Hairston made a leap for but was unable to catch it as Nix hit a double off the left field wall to bring home Pence and give Philadelphia their first lead of the game.
In the top of the eighth the Mets went down quietly against right-hander Chad Qualls who worked around a two-out Daniel Murphy single to set the Mets down for the seventh straight inning without a run.
Then in the bottom of the eighth the flood gates opened as the Phillies batted around and scored five times in the inning to increase their lead to 8-2. Manny Acosta started the inning and worked his way into a one out bases loaded situation before walking Pence to force home a run, forcing Terry Collins to pull Acosta from the game in favor of Miguel Batista.
The ‘long-man’ Batista struggled just as much allowing the biggest hit of the game to Wigginton as he bombed a deep double over the head of Hairston to make the score 7-2. The Phillies scored once more in the frame, sending the game to the top of the ninth as new Phillies’ closer Jonathan Papelbon came on to close out the game.
The first two Met batters went down without much of a fight against the right-hander but Lucas Duda and Kirk Nieuwenhuis reached via singles to give the Mets a little bit of hope. Papelbon then walked Josh Thole to load the bases but struck out Justin Turner on three pitches to end the game and deny the Mets of the sweep.
Game Ball: With the exception of Davis’ home run the Mets’ offense did absolutely nothing worth noting against Hamels, and clearly none of the three relievers deserve any accolades. So it’s pretty obvious that Pelfrey gets the game ball in this one after allowing only one run on eight hits over his six innings of work.
Up Next: The Mets continue their first road trip of the season in Atlanta and will throw Dillon Gee against Tommy Hanson. Despite losing today the Mets are still winning series, and winning the first one on the road is a good first step.
