Phillies, Mets series finale rained out Thursday

Thursday’s series finale between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets in Queens was postponed due to inclement weather on Thursday afternoon. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on June 25, starting at 4:10 p.m. ET.

It was a fitting end to a difficult week in New York. The opener originally scheduled for Monday was postponed due to rain, prompting a doubleheader on Wednesday that the Phillies were swept out of as the Mets began to find their muscle.

New York now has six of their first 13 originally scheduled games postponed or suspended due to rain or COVID concerns.

The Phillies were run out of Citi Field on Wednesday night in a 5-1 loss that saw the Mets jump on their former pitcher, Zack Wheeler before pulling away in the late innings.

Their bats had been completely silenced, most notably striking out 14 times during Wednesday’s loss when second-year hurler David Peterson allowed just one run on three hits in six innings of work.

“I don’t think our swings have been really big. I don’t think they’re out of control,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said. “I just think we’re missing balls. We’re chasing a little bit, but I don’t see it as egregious chases. I don’t. We’re just not particularly swinging well right now.”

Bryce Harper, who shouldered plenty of the blame, struck out three times that night.

“I need to have better at-bats,” Harper said. “I think as a whole team we need to have that flow of at-bats as well. I think one guy right now is really doing his job and that’s J.T. [Realmuto]. Everybody else around him? Not doing so much.”

So far this season, the Phillies have struck out 109 times over 397 plate appearances (27.5%), which is well above the league average.

In a matter of three days, the Phillies went from having a two-game lead at the top of the NL East to trailing the Mets by a game.

A silver lining, however, is that they got to avoid ace Jacob deGrom, who is off to another brilliant start to the 2021 season in which he’s posted a 0.64 ERA with 21 strikeouts over two starts.