NEW YORK — Every hitter in the game knows it. When a relief pitcher gets behind in a count in a tight game, more often than not he will throw a fastball.
Watch closely in these situations and you can almost see the hitter dig in and start to drool.
The Phillies were beaten, 6-3, by the New York Mets on Monday afternoon (see Instant Replay). Mets’ shortstop Wilmer Flores fired the kill shot when he clubbed a tie-breaking, three-run home run off Justin De Fratus with no outs in the sixth inning.
De Fratus, who had entered the game one batter earlier with an inherited runner on first base, could not throw strikes. He walked the first batter he faced on four pitches then threw two more balls to Flores. The count went to 3-and-1.
Guess what’s coming.
A fastball.
This one was 91 mph.
Good-bye.
“It’s such a predictable count,” De Fratus said after the game. “I think at the moment I hadn’t thrown any secondary pitch for a strike yet. Flores did what he should do with that pitch. He should barrel it. He should hit it hard. And he did and it got over the wall.”
De Fratus did not get the loss. That went to rookie lefty Elvis Araujo, who rolled a double-play ball to get out of the fifth and keep the game tied, but allowed a leadoff single to Daniel Murphy to open the bottom of the sixth.
With two right-handed hitters coming, manager Ryne Sandberg went to the right-handed De Fratus, who ended up allowing two walks and a homer while retiring just one of the four batters he faced.
De Fratus has inherited nine runners this season and seven have scored. Inherited runners have also been a problem for Jake Diekman, who has allowed six of 10 inherited runners to score.
“The game plan doesn’t change,” De Fratus said. “Whether there’s men on base or not, I’m still out there trying to pound the strike zone.
“It just didn’t happen today.”
No, it didn't. Just five of the 18 pitches that De Fratus threw in one-third of an inning were strikes.
“He just seems to be falling behind in counts and having to come over the plate instead of trusting his stuff, attacking hitters in the zone and making them earn what they get,” Sandberg said. “The walk and the home run behind in the count — those are issues he needs to work on.”
The starting pitchers did a good job throwing strikes. Rookie Severino Gonzalez struck out eight and did not walk a batter in 4 1/3 innings. He allowed three runs, two on long homers, and left with the score tied, 3-3.
Mets’ starter Bartolo Colon, 20 years Gonzalez’s senior, held the Phils to three runs over six innings, walked two and struck out six. He has beaten the Phillies twice this month.
The turning point of Colon’s afternoon came in the top of the fifth inning when he faced Ryan Howard with one out and the bases loaded. Howard lifted a long fly ball to center. For a moment, it looked to have grand-slam distance, but it came down short and went for a game-tying sacrifice fly. The ball traveled 393 feet.
“I ain’t going to lie, I thought I had it,” Howard said afterward. “It would have been nice if it went. We’ll take the run, but four would have been nice.”
All but one of the Mets’ six runs came on homers. Gonzalez gave up a 452-foot rocket to Duda in the bottom of the third on an 88 mph fastball. That came just moments after Chase Utley gave the Phils a 2-1 lead with a two-run single.
“We failed to get the shutdown inning there,” Sandberg said.
An inning later, Michael Cuddyer hit a 434-foot shot to left to give the Mets a 3-2 lead.
The Phillies are 1-6 against the Mets this season. They have lost 17 of their last 22 to the Mets, dating to last season.
But Howard senses something different about this season.
“It seemed like last year, if we got down the game was over,” he said. “It didn’t matter if it was 1-nothing. It just seemed like if a team put up a run it was going to be tough to come back. This year, there has been a lot more fight, a lot more energy, which is a positive. We have to continue to grow on that.”