Mets dance through the raindrops with two left feet as Phillies big bats leave them drenched in onions and sadness

Phillies 6 Mets 1 (Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, PA)

Mets record: 41-58

Mets streak: Lost 1

WP - Jesus Luzardo (9-4)

LP - Sean Manaea (2-5)

Seat on the Korner: Kyle Schwarber

We select a Star of the Game and virtually invite him to take his Seat on the Korner — just as Ralph Kiner did on WOR-TV Channel 9 during the early days of the New York Mets.

Continuing the tradition of Rheingold Beer sponsoring Kiner’s Korner, this season every seat is proudly presented by The Main Event Restaurant & Sports Bar.

With locations in Plainview and Farmingdale, The Main Event features 80+ HD TVs, fresh daily seafood, and Black Angus certified steaks—so you never have to choose between great food and the big game.

Kyle Schwarber delivered the keynote today and continued his 2026 dominance over the Mets hitting his 6th home run of the season against them (and 26th in his career) to send the Mets on another path to despair.

Need to Know

• The start time was moved up one hour due to impending weather. It's the second game in a row that the Mets and Phillies have had their start time adjusted. That impending weather still impacted the game in the form of a rain delay that was close to an hour long in the 7th.

• Jesus Luzardo came into the game with the third worst home ERA in MLB at 6.60. He pitched five innings and gave up a run on Tyrone Taylor's homer, two hits and two walks total, and struck out seven.

• This was the Phillies' 10th straight win on a Jesus Luzardo start.

• Carson Benge came into the game hitting .333 against the Phillies this season. He went 0-for-4 today.

• Kyle Schwarber came into the game hitting 10-for-28 with 5 homers against the Mets this season. He put Sean Manaea into the second deck two batters into the game to make it 6 homers against the Mets.

• Sean Manaea went 4 and 2/3's innings, giving up four runs on four runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out seven. Manaea threw 99 pitches, 65 of them strikes.

• Kodai Senga entered the game in the 5th inning with two outs. It was the first time Senga has ever come into a game in the middle of an inning. Senga walked JT Realmuto to load the bases but then struck out Derek Hill to end the inning with a ghost fork. But he would give up two runs in the 6th to end all hope.

• The Mets' three errors today give them six in their last three games. It also gave them as many errors as hits today.

Turning Point

It honestly turned two batters into the game. Sean Manaea gave up a single to Trea Turner to start the game. Then ...

When you're a bad team, starts like this make the game just feel like it's over. Give Sean Manaea credit for hanging in there and not being a total gas can from there on out against the Phillies, but at no point during this game, not even after Tyrone Taylor's home run, that any of us watching at home thought "this game is winnable." Sure enough, Manaea gives up two in the 5th, and even after he kept them in the game for a while, that was pretty much that. Only getting a Taylor home run doesn't help.

Three Keys

There Are Three E's in "America's Dead Horse"

Six errors in three games. It's gotten to the point where bringing up the phrase with the initials "R.P." seems like a dirty word. At the very least, it's just seemed like beating a dead horse.

The New York Mets: America's Dead Horse.

Backwards

It seems as if that word can be used to describe Kodai Senga's Mets career, but it could also be used to describe his pitch sequence to Bryce Harper. He starts him out 0-2 with two nasty ghost forks that were nowhere near the plate. Now I'm not a pitcher, but even I understand that you either throw a third ghost fork in the same spot or even worse than the first two, or you throw a fastball up at his eyes.

So what did Senga do? He threw a ghost fork that stayed in the bottom of the zone, and Bryce Harper isn't going to miss that.

Whenever Senga takes a step forward, he takes a step or two back. It's been the story of his attempt to regain a prominent role on this team.

Any Good News?

Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing went a combined 1-for-7 today.

Why is that good news?

Because Andy Green played them against Luzardo, a lefty. There's no reason to keep these guys in mothballs when a lefty is on the mound anymore. In the case of Benge, his lefty/righty splits are pretty even while taking into account the wide disparity in at-bats that he's had against both sides.

Here's Ewing's hit against lefty Jose Alvarado today:

Not exactly a tape measure blast, but a hit is a hit. They'll come more often as long as they get the chance to see lefties.