Aug 27, 2025; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets starting pitcher Nolan McLean (26) throws the ball to first base for an out on a ground ball hit by Philadelphia Phillies left fielder Harrison Bader (2) during the eighth inning at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
NEW YORK - Getting swept is one thing - but at least make the other team use a push broom. The Mets barely needed a dust brush.
The Phillies offense was nowhere to be found in their 6-0 loss to a team they could have buried this week, instead, they let them right back into the NL East race.
Nolan McLean is a top pitching prospect for the Mets and he's dazzled in his three starts at the Big League level, but against the Phillies he looked like Tom Seaver reincarnated.
That's because Philadelphia hitters were feckless. Alec Bohm had a single in the second inning that had Brett Baty not been caught in between the hop, might have been fielded cleanly. It made no difference, as Max Kepler grounded into a double play on the very next plate appearance.
Fast forward to the sixth inning - because that's the next time the Phillies actually had a runner reach base - and Bryce Harper had what was ultimately a meaningless two-out single. Two innings later, Bohm had another single followed up by a Kepler single to lead off the inning, but Bohm couldn't scamper home on either shallow fly ball by Nick Castellanos or Bryson Stott, and Harrison Bader tapped out to McLean to end the threat.
That was the extent of the Phillies offense against the heralded rookie, who, like his fictional New York namesake, basically said yippee-kay-yea to the Phillies and blew them away.
The fact that the Mets offense, which always seems to suddenly awake from their summer slumber whenever they host the Phillies, put up another double-digit hit game and wore out Phillies pitching for the third straight game is secondary to the fact that the Phillies bats were not only quiet, they were ghostly still.
And the apparition reference is intentional there, because whenever the Phillies walk into Citi Field, they look like they've seen a bunch of them, or are spooked into doing things they don't normally do.
Until they stirred in the eighth inning to get those two singles off McLean forcing a longer inning, the Mets rookie had just 76 pitches through seven innings.
"As advertised," Phillies manager Rob Thomson said of McLean. "Good sinker, good four-seam fastball and he can spin it."
And what does getting swept do to the team's confidence?
Rob Thomson: “Admittedly, we need to play better. But we will. We’ve got a good club.”
(Via @AntSanPhilly) pic.twitter.com/D3OJFQ87LY
"We have an experienced group so I don't think it does much," Thomson said. "We know we got to play better but it's just one of those series. ... It's one series. I know it's against the Mets and admittedly so we have got to play better - and we will. We've got a good club and that's not going to change."
One would think a team that constantly touts its veteran status and its collectively unphased approach to adversity would be used to facing pitchers for the first time in the Big Leagues by now.
Alas, a team that is known for putting high pitch counts on opposing pitchers suddenly found themselves in a game where they couldn't, and when they were aggressive, because the kid throws a lot of strikes - they couldn't do anything with it.
So now here are the Mets, back within four games of the Phillies in the divisional race. The Phillies still have to feel confident about a four-game lead with 29 to play, but the road is gonna be a lot bumpier now than it could have been.
The Phillies still have road series' left with Milwaukee and the Dodgers and host the Mets for four games in a couple weeks. That's 10 of their 29 games. Those 10 will make or break this regular season.
But if you listen to Kyle Schwarber - who is 0-for-20 since hitting his 45th homer against Seattle last Wednesday - the Phillies aren't worried about that. They aren't thinking about the fact that they didn't just let the sleeping dogs lie in their own mess in Queens.
Do Kyle Schwarber and the Phillies feel like they let the Mets back into the NL East race?
(Via @AntSanPhilly) pic.twitter.com/7qHJTobiBA
"I don't think we're focused on that," Schwarber said. "We're focused on ourselves. This is about us. ... We've got to get back. We have another important series ahead of us. We have to go out and take care of business. Looking forward, we've still got another series with these guys, but we're not looking at that [yet]. We're looking at the series ahead of us. Things happen.
"There's disappoint. Who likes to lose? No one likes to lose. But there's nothing that can really phase us. We've been swept before this year. We've bounced back. We've got to do the same thing. I'm not worried about it."
The team can flush this sweep all they want. But it's harder to do when it happens in Flushing though, which has happened an unfathomable 10 times in a row - but what they have done to themselves with the latest letdown by LaGuardia is put themselves in a position where more games are going to matter in the final 32 days of the season.
All they had to do was not get swept to prevent this from happening.
"Obviously we have to figure out a way to win here, especially if we come back in the playoffs," said Taijuan Walker, who gave the Phillies five innings and allowed four runs on 10 hits. " But right now, the only way I can put it is, it's just baseball."
Sure is. But it didn't have to be.
