NEW YORK — Bryce Harper got a fastball over the middle of the plate here Saturday and didn’t miss it.
That was the extent of the Phillies’ offense.
Hey, it happens. Near the end of a weeklong road trip in which they’ve scored 34 runs in six games, after a 44-run outburst on a six-game homestand, the bats were bound to cool.
But if Harper’s glove was as quick in the sixth inning as his bat in the third, it may not have mattered. Instead, Francisco Lindor’s scorched liner went under Harper’s mitt as he dove to his left, the start of a Mets’ rally that doomed the Phillies to a 6-2 loss.
“I felt like he top-spun it and I thought it was going to bounce up, and it just got under my glove,” Harper said after the Phillies’ four-game winning streak ended. “I was pretty upset about that play. Obviously a play I think I should have made, but it didn’t happen.”
It wasn’t the only costly play, though. Two batters before Lindor’s game-tying two-run triple, Juan Soto singled on a fly ball that fell in front of right fielder Gabriel Rincones Jr.
Could Rincones have been more aggressive?
“I couldn’t really tell,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “They’ll have the report out tomorrow, just [catch] probabilities and things like that. I haven’t really looked at it yet.”
In any case, the two plays in the Mets’ four-run sixth inning amplified one Phillies weakness that hasn’t gotten better since Mattingly took over on April 28.
While the rotation is among the best in baseball, the bullpen has largely held up, and the offense is more productive despite lacking a big right-handed bat, the Phillies remain the second-worst defensive team in the sport, according to both defensive runs saved (minus-29) and outs above average (minus-20).
And it isn’t a nitpick. In close, low-scoring games — the kind that get played in October — even the slightest defensive shortcomings loom large.
For as well as the Phillies have played under Mattingly, he knows it’s an area they need to button up.
“There’s times I like it, and there’s times that I don’t feel as good about it,” Mattingly said of the overall team defense. “It’s kind of day-to-day. Some of the plays, you don’t know why. Like, I see certain plays that you feel like you can get to.
“In general, it’s been OK.”
Hardly a ringing endorsement.
Then there was another out on the bases by Harper. With the Phillies leading 2-0, he led off with a bloop between diving center fielder A.J. Ewing and Lindor. When Lindor fell down, Harper tried to reach second, but the shortstop recovered to throw him out.
“I didn’t think Lindor was going to go get it, and he did,” Harper said. “Not one that I’m trying to go to second on aggressively.”
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Mattingly liked the aggressiveness. And given the lack of hits from everyone else in the lineup (Harper had two of the Phillies’ five), it’s hardly a guarantee Harper would have scored.
Alan Rangel, meanwhile, continued to impress Mattingly in what amounts to an ongoing audition for the No. 5 starter spot. Once again, the 28-year-old righty came in after lefty opener Tim Mayza — after a 70-minute rain delay at the outset — and held the Mets to one infield hit before the sixth inning.
“I felt great today,” Rangel said through a team interpreter. “I felt great with commanding the strike zone, and I just felt great overall with my slider, my curveball. My changeup was good.”
Rangel has a higher-than-usual release point and three varieties of offspeed pitches (changeup, slider, and curveball). Harper said the changeup reminds him of reliever Tyler Clippard, his teammate with the Nationals.
“Just a really good pitch,” Harper said. “I think that just keeps guys off balance. The changeup is kind of a hidden gem in the game nowadays. Not many people throw it, but when they do, and they can throw it really well, you’re going to have success.”
After Lindor’s triple, Rangel walked Jared Young and was lifted for Jonathan Bowlan, who walked Mark Vientos to load the bases and gave up Ewing’s two-run single through a drawn-in infield.
But while the sixth inning spoiled Rangel’s outing, the Phillies are content to keep using him in the fifth-starter spot.
“I’d say right now we’re committed to him being in there,” Mattingly said. “He’s thrown the ball good both times, kept us in the game. We weren’t really putting runs on the board to give a little bit of a cushion where one inning doesn’t hurt you. But in general, Al’s been good.”
Unlike, say, the defense.
“I’d like to see us always continue to tighten everything up,” Mattingly said. “We can get better where, the outs we’re supposed to get, we want to get and not give those guys extra chances.”
Ricky Bottalico spouts opinions each day on sports-talk radio and the Phillies’ television pre- and postgame show. But before all that, he had a solid career as a relief pitcher, even representing the Phillies in the 1996 All-Star Game at Veterans Stadium. With the baseball world set to descend on Philly again in a few weeks, Ricky Bo joined “Phillies Extra” to re-live his All-Star experience. Watch here.
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