Philadelphia Phillies vs. New York Mets

The last time the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets matched up, the teams were the toast of baseball. They had challenged each other to the end of the last two seasons, and seemed to be doing it again this year.

While the Phillies (39-37) are still in first place (tied with the Florida Marlins) and the Mets (39-39) are one game behind, the luster of the rivalry series has lost something because of both teams struggling.

Philadelphia returns home, which has been three dirty words this season. The Phillies are an inexplicable 13-22 at home, but that number had been diminished because usually when Philadelphia was returning home, they were returning home after a phenomenal road trip.

Not so much this time as they went 3-6 capped by a three-game sweep in Atlanta. The Philadelphia Phillies now look to avoid losing seven straight games at Citizens Bank Park for the first time since its inaugural season of 2004.

Philadelphia had gone 23-9 before heading out on their nine-game, three-city road trip a couple weeks back. Now they return just two-games above .500 and showing no signs of being able to pull out of their slump of which they have lost 12 of their last 15 games.

Luckily for the Phillies, the Mets are not playing much better, although they were able to beat a distraught Pittsburgh Pirates team, 9-8 in 11 innings in a rain-out make-up game on Thursday.

New York came back from a 5-0 hole to record 15 hits in the victory, their second straight, but they had lost five straight prior to the last two.

The New York Mets know that the division is up for grabs and smell blood in the water for the team that knocked them out of the postseason in the last game of the year two straight years.

To take advantage of this, New York will go with Livan Hernandez (5-3, 4.04) who has been solid his last few starts, but they have not resulted in victories. The veteran is 0-2 with a 3.00 ERA in his last three starts, including allowing three runs on three hits and five walks in a 4-2 loss to the New York Yankees on Sunday.

The Phillies have to trot out another little used pitcher when they go with Rodrigo Lopez, making his first start in the bigs since July 26, 2007 when he was a member of the Colorado Rockies.

Lopez underwent Tommy John later that season and has been toiling in the minors since, posting a 5-4 record with a 3.91 ERA with Philadelphia’s Triple A affiliate this season.

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