The Philadelphia Phillies hit another impressive milestone under interim manager Don Mattingly on Friday night.
For the New York Mets, it was more of the same in their first game under interim manager Andy Green.
The Phillies will look to continue the Mets’ misery on Saturday afternoon when the teams meet in the second contest of their three-game series in New York.
Alan Rangel (0-0, 2.25 ERA) is slated to make his first big league start for the Phillies against fellow right-hander Christian Scott (2-0, 3.10).
Scott will be activated from the 15-day injured list after battling a right hip impingement.
Zack Wheeler tossed seven solid innings (one run, four hits) and earned the win as the Phillies recorded a 2-1 victory over the Mets on Friday, hours after Green replaced the fired Carlos Mendoza.
The win was the fourth straight and the sixth in the last seven games for the Phillies (46-36), who improved to a season-high 10 games over .500. Philadelphia was a season-worst 10 games under .500 at 9-19 on April 26, two days before manager Rob Thomson was fired and Mattingly was named the interim skipper.
The Phillies’ 37-17 record since April 28 places them in a virtual tie with the Milwaukee Brewers (36-16) for the best mark in the majors in that span. Philadelphia leads the National League wild-card race and is four games behind the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves.
“The first goal was to get to .500, and then it goes to five (over), and now it’s 10 — the next step is 15,” Mattingly said. “It’s been good to be able to get there fairly quickly, where we got ourselves back in it, put ourselves in position, and now it’s a matter of can we consistently run and kind of stay at our pace?”
The last-place Mets are on pace for their worst season in more than two decades, but Green — who was the club’s farm director — expressed optimism regarding the chances for a turnaround before New York scored one run or fewer for the 19th time this year.
The Mets, who opened the season with a $358 million payroll, are 34-48 and 10 games out of the third and final NL wild-card spot. They have lost seven straight games.
Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor, both of whom have spent time on the injured list with calf injuries, played together Friday for just the 10th time this season. Bo Bichette is batting .254 with 10 homers and 45 RBIs, but fellow off-season acquisitions Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert Jr. are sidelined indefinitely with injuries after combining for just 141 at-bats.
The Mets were limited to five hits Friday as they squandered a solid second big league outing Friday by Zach Thornton, who is likely to occupy a spot in a rotation.
“I think we very much can be a well-rounded team and can move forward and try to recapture what kind of was expected of us when the season started,” Green said.
Rangel last pitched on Monday, when he allowed one run over five innings of bulk relief in the Phillies’ 4-1 loss to the Washington Nationals.
Scott hasn’t pitched since June 11, when he didn’t factor into the decision after giving up four runs over 4 2/3 innings in the Mets’ 5-4 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. Scott didn’t require a minor league rehab stint following his minimum stay on the IL.
Both pitchers will make their first career appearance against the other team.
–Field Level Media
