Phillies knocks off Mets, assume sole possession of first place in the NL East

Scott Lauber, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jun 20, 2025

Published in Baseball

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PHILADELPHIA — Zack Wheeler delivered the pitch and looked in at the home plate umpire, as though he expected a called third strike.

Ball three.

It was the right call. Wheeler’s sinker was inside, a smidge off the plate. But Jonathan Parra called strikes on similar pitches Friday night, and if he had done so there, Wheeler would’ve completed five innings in 91 pitches and likely started the sixth.

And a Phillies win over the New York Mets might’ve been less sweaty.

OK, so it wasn’t that sweaty. Not after the Phillies put up a six-spot in the seventh inning and raced — literally, as J.T. Realmuto slid across the plate almost simultaneous to Nick Castellanos on a three-run double — to a series-opening 10-2 victory at sold-out Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies won for the ninth time in 11 games. The Mets lost their seventh in a row. And for the first time since May 30, the Phillies are in sole possession of first place in the NL East, with two more games between the teams coming up in a series that marks the official start of summer in South Philly.

Castellanos bashed a two-run homer in the eighth inning to turn the game into a knee-slapper. By then, the back-to-back homers allowed by Taijuan Walker in the sixth inning were long forgotten.

Before that, though, well, the non-strike call in the fifth inning loomed large.

Because rather than getting out of the fifth inning with a strikeout of Brandon Nimmo, Wheeler threw seven more pitches and was out of the game at 97. Walker entered to start the sixth inning with a 2-0 lead, and after only six pitches, the Mets tied the game on back-to-back homers by Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil.

The Phillies are taking a look at Walker, a converted starter, in high-leverage relief situations before deciding how many relievers they must acquire at the July 31 trade deadline. The reviews so far have been mixed.

Brandon Marsh led off the game-breaking rally in the seventh inning against Mets reliever Reed Garrett by shooting a double into the left-field corner. Trea Turner snapped a 2-2 tie with a double down the right-field line.

The Phillies kept coming. Kyle Schwarber walked; Alec Bohm singled; Castellanos singled in one run; Realmuto walked on four pitches to load the bases.

Stott banged a ball off the angled wall in left-center, and when it bounced on the warning track, Castellanos and Realmuto were off to the races, the latter sliding in just behind the former to open an 8-2 lead.