Nick Castellanos pulled a single down the left-field line off reliever Tylor Megill to lift the Philadelphia Phillies to a 7-6 walk-off victory over the New York Mets to take Game 2 of the NLDS on Sunday evening at Citizens Bank Park.
The dramatic win keeps the Phillies alive in the series after dropping the opener on Saturday night, which was magnified by the Mets roaring back in the top of the ninth to overturn a 6-4 deficit thanks to Mark Vientos’ second home run of the game off Phillies closer Matt Strahm to tie it up.
Bryson Stott’s two-run triple in the bottom of the eighth off Mets closer Edwin Diaz capped off a three-run to give the Phillies that two-run advantage. Holding a one-run lead, Diaz was called upon to record the last out of the seventh inning — a strikeout of Kyle Schwarber to preserve the advantage — before things came undone in the eighth. With one out in the frame, Diaz walked Bryce Harper on four pitches and allowed a single to Nick Castellanos to put runners on the corners for Stott, who slapped a double down the right-field line to plate a pair.
A slow roller by Brandon Marsh after Diaz was pulled for Tylor Megill plated Stott to give the Phillies a two-run lead, which was preserved by Matt Strahm in the top of the ninth.
It was the second time that the middle of the Phillies’ order burned the Mets in Game 2, who previously squandered a 3-0 lead built by two home runs from Vientos and Pete Alonso in the bottom of the sixth when Luis Severino, who had been brilliant through the first 5.2 innings, allowed back-to-back home runs to Harper and Castellanos to tie things up.
Brandon Nimmo responded immediately for the Mets with a solo home run in the top of the seventh to give the visitors a one-run lead and begin to flirt with a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series. Instead, the Mets will have to settle for a split with the NLDS headed back to New York for Game 3 on Tuesday.
Vientos gave New York the lead in the top of the third following a Francisco Lindor one-out single, jumping on a first-pitch changeup from Phillies starter Christopher Sanchez that sat middle-middle and sending it 354 feet just over the elevated wall in right field.
The 24-year-old became just the ninth player in Mets franchise history to hit a postseason home run under the age of 25 and the first to do so since Michael Conforto hit two round-trippers in Game 4 of the 2015 World Series. Vientos, who went 3-for-4 with a double, became the first player in National League history to record three extra-base hits in a single postseason game.
If an early multi-run lead felt weird for Mets fans, that is because it had not happened recently. In fact, it was the first time in 14 games New York led by two or more runs in the first three innings.
Meanwhile, the Phillies worked a runner over to third in the first and third innings, but Severino left them stranded 90 feet from paydirt.
Escaping those early jams provided the foundation for Severino to find a groove, as he retired 13 of 15 batters faced from the end of the second to the end of the fifth.
Alonso rudely greeted the Phillies’ bullpen to lead off the sixth inning, taking a Jonathan Ruiz curveball that sat up and away in the zone the other way — just as Vientos did — 370 feet to give the Mets a three-run lead.
However, Severino’s day came undone in three pitches in the bottom of the sixth. Allowing a two-out single to Trea Turner, Harper brought Philadelphia to within one with a 431-foot moonshot to dead-center. Two pitches later, Castellanos jumped on a hanging sweeper to left-center to tie things up.
But as the Mets have done every time in the last week, they responded swiftly in the top of the seventh when Nimmo pulled a 3-1 Orion Kerkering sinker over the right-field wall to regain the lead.
