Well, right, okay. That seems like great news then! Phillies were not managing or playing like the games were do-or-die, because they weren't. For the Mets, they were. On top of the fifth starter thing.
And going to the bullpen early wasn't really the difference in several of these games. Phillies lost two on this road trip where their own starter went seven (after previously going 34-0) while alllowing 1 run and 2 runs (they won the other, #34). The Mets starters went 6 and 7 in two of the games so you are really just talking about last night. And the Brewers are a team that does that in April as much as October.
Obviously the offense needs to be better. If you play a lot of 2-1 games or even a lot of one-run games it can go either way. We already know what Harper, Bohm, Turner, Castellanos and Schwarber look like when they are hot, and when they are cold. We'll see who shows up.
And hopefully they will both do better at home as usual and feel a bit more urgency now. I'm sure they are tired of waiting, and also hated having to celebrate the playoff berth (apparently mandated by MLB because there were shirts to wear). That couldn't have been psychologically useful for urgency/sharpness either, even if they didn't hit the bottles hard.
