PHILADELPHIA -- After shaving their magic number to one on Friday, the New York Mets elected not to stick around Citizens Bank Park to learn if they would officially secure their second straight postseason berth.
“If it was 1-0,” catcher Travis d'Arnaud said, referring to the score of the game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, which would determine if the Mets clinched a wild-card spot, “maybe our minds would have changed.”
Surging Jay Bruce drove in three runs and the Mets took care of their business, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 5-1.
The Mets then packed up and returned to their hotel rather than wait at the ballpark for a potential champagne-filled celebration. The Cardinals, whose game at Busch Stadium started an hour later than the Mets' game, already had taken a sizable late lead on the Pirates. A St. Louis loss would have clinched a wild-card bid for the Mets.
With Friday’s win, the Mets (86-74) moved a season-high 12 games over .500 and assured they would participate in at least a play-in game.
“We’re certainly very, very pleased that we get to play past Sunday,” manager Terry Collins said. “I can’t say it enough times: We had to take care of our own business, and we’ve done that. And we’re not going to stop doing it.”
The Mets had only five batters reach against Phillies right-hander Alec Asher, but four of those came on consecutive two-out singles in the fourth and decided the game.
Asher had retired the game’s opening 11 batters before Yoenis Cespedes' two-out single started a rally. Curtis Granderson followed with a single, and Bruce and T.J. Rivera then delivered RBI singles as the Mets grabbed a 2-1 lead.
Bruce eventually chased Asher with a solo homer to lead off the seventh. He also delivered an RBI single the following frame to finish 3-for-4.
Bruce has started five straight games since a brief benching and is awakening as the postseason approaches. He has four homers, eight RBIs and a six-game hitting streak in the past week after a putrid start to his Mets career. He is hitting .500 (10-for-20) during that stretch. Acquired Aug. 1 from the Cincinnati Reds, Bruce had only four homers in his first 42 games with the Mets.
“We knew when we got him, if he could start swinging the bat, he changes our whole lineup,” Collins said. “And he does. You’re looking at a guy who produces runs -- 98 RBIs, or whatever he’s got for the season. It’s nice to have him swinging the bat, I’ll tell you. And he came at the right time. It’s when we needed him. Hopefully he can stay hot from now on.”
Said Bruce: “I’ve had a lot of success throughout my career. This is my ninth season in the major leagues. I trust myself that it’s going to be there. I trust myself that what I do every single day to prepare works. It’s baseball. You go through ups and downs, ebbs and flows of the season. It was not a great time to go through one of those for me. It looks like I’m back on the upswing now.”
The Mets had considered using Bartolo Colon on short rest on Friday to line him up for next Wednesday’s wild-card game in case Noah Syndergaard is unavailable. However, the 43-year-old Colon preferred waiting until Saturday. So, like fellow rookie Seth Lugo on Wednesday in Miami, Robert Gsellman turned in another solid performance.
Gsellman limited the Phillies to one run on seven hits while striking out seven in six innings. With his 87-pitch outing, Gsellman improved to 4-2 with a 2.42 ERA in eight appearances (seven starts).
A stiff wind blowing toward the plate proved Gsellman’s ally. It knocked down Jimmy Paredes' would-be go-ahead two-run homer in the sixth inning. Earlier, the stiff wind had kept shots by Lucas Duda and Jose Reyes in the yard.
The lone damage against Gsellman came on Cameron Rupp's sacrifice fly in the second inning, after Ryan Howard’s double had advanced Maikel Franco to third.
“I can’t even tell you how important they’ve been to the club,” Collins said about Gsellman and Lugo. “We’ve asked a lot of our young pitchers that have come up -- be it [Matt] Harvey when he first came up, or Jake [deGrom] or Noah [Syndergaard] or Steven Matz. But nobody was thrust into a pennant race like these guys. Noah came up last year early, obviously pitched most of the year for us, and therefore got in a pennant race. These guys came up in August and -- bam -- they’re in the middle of crunch time. They have really done an outstanding job of controlling their emotions, [having] great demeanor on the mound, and great stuff.”
Said Gsellman: “This is what I dreamed of. It’s a lot of fun. Hopefully I can keep having fun for years.”
Howard is the lone remaining member of the 2007 Phillies -- the team that erased the Mets’ seven-game division lead with 17 games to play to validate Jimmy Rollins’ “team-to-beat” proclamation.
Now in his 13th season, Howard is in his final weekend as a member of the Phillies and perhaps as a major leaguer as his career fades. The Phillies played a tribute video early in Friday’s game. And Phillies fans gave him a standing ovation before his final at-bat.
The Mets, meanwhile, are nearing their second straight postseason berth -- even if they did not get the opportunity to celebrate Friday.
“There will be another day this weekend, I hope,” Collins said.