Mets get swept in Philadelphia; star urges fans to believe in the team

Former New York Mets pitcher Zack Wheeler, now with the Philadelphia Phillies was just too much to handle for a struggling team that has lost four straight games and fallen all the way to third place in the NL East standings, a division that they led for nearly three months before giving up the top spot last week.

The Mets were swept by the Phillies in Philadelphia and are now 56-55, dangerously close to being a sub-.500 team. They are now 2.5 games behind the division-leading Phillies and half a game behind the second-place Atlanta Braves.

Yesterday, the Mets had no answer for Wheeler’s stuff. They could only muster two hits and one walk all day, throwing Taijuan Walker’s quality start to waste.

Wheeler threw a complete game shutout by using only 108 pitches all day. He gave up the two hits and the walk while striking out 11 Mets hitters. At times, he made it look easy, and that’s in part because of his talent and also because the Mets’ offense isn’t really threatening these days.

Mets’ slugger is confident the team will get over the speed bump

But Pete Alonso, one of the faces of the franchise, is urging fans to believe in this team.

“Mets fans, believe in us,” Alonso said to MLB.com. “And don’t just believe. Know. Because there’s tough times not just in baseball, but in life in general. Know that this is just a speed bump and a challenge. And also, smile. You get to watch baseball. It’s a game. I know we have the most passionate fan base in baseball. I know that. And I understand that it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for us. But just understand that we’re here together. We’re all in this together, and we’ve got this. We’ve got this. Just smile and know that we’ve got this.”

The Mets have dropped nine of its last 11 games and have ceded 6 1/2 games in the National League East standings.

“We believe that we can do this,” manager Luis Rojas said. “We trust that we can still do this.”

“We’ve still got to keep being positive,” Walker said. “We’re going through a little rough patch right now, but it happens. This is a long season. There’s still plenty of ballgames left to go. I think we’re going to catch fire, and it’s going to be at the right time.”