NEW YORK — Sean Manaea carried a shutout into the eighth inning and benefited from strong defense behind him by the New York Mets, who beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-2 in Game 3 of a National League Division Series on Tuesday.
Pete Alonso and Jesse Winker homered, Starling Marte and Jose Iglesias each had a two-run single and Francisco Lindor added an RBI double for the Mets, who lead the best-of-five series 2-1. Game 4 is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, when host New York will aim to reach the NL Championship Series for the first time since 2015.
“Obviously it would be special,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said of moving on. “But we’ve got to come back tomorrow and we’ve got to win a baseball game.”
The Phillies reached the World Series in 2022 and the NLCS in 2023, and manager Rob Thomson believes that his team can stave off elimination this time around.
“I told them it’s the most resilient club I’ve ever been around,” Thomson said. “That’s what they’re about. They’re all about toughness and fighting and playing together. That’s what we need to do and just focus on one game.”
Manaea (1-0), who entered Tuesday with a 10.66 ERA in four career playoff appearances, gave up one run on three hits while striking out six, walking two and plunking two over seven-plus innings. He exited to a standing ovation following Edmundo Sosa’s leadoff single in the eighth and blew a kiss toward the sky in honor of his Aunt Mabel, who died earlier Tuesday.
“That game was for her,” Manaea said.
The most well-struck hit off Manaea was Alec Bohm’s one-out single off the right-center-field wall in the fourth, but center fielder Tyrone Taylor barehanded the carom and fired to shortstop Lindor, who made a swipe tag at the sliding Bohm.
“I just turned and threw it, so just hoping that it went to where I thought I was going to throw it,” Taylor said.
Manaea got out of a jam in the sixth, when he walked Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner to open the inning. The 32-year-old southpaw then struck out Bryce Harper on three pitches and got Nick Castellanos to line out to second, where Iglesias tossed the ball to Lindor to double up Schwarber.
Alonso continued his run of dramatic moments by homering on the first pitch he saw from Phillies starter Aaron Nola (0-1) in the second inning. It was the third homer in the past four games for Alonso, an impending free agent who extended the Mets’ season by hitting a three-run, ninth-inning homer last Thursday in New York’s 4-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 3 of an NL wild-card series.
“He’s already changed games with one swing,” Winker said of Alonso. “He did it again tonight. He got us the momentum early.”
Winker homered deep into the second deck in right in the fourth. Marte and Iglesias added their insurance singles in the sixth and seventh, respectively. The Phillies ended the shutout bid in the eighth, when Harper and Castellanos had back-to-back two-out RBI singles before Bohm flied out.
Lindor delivered his double with two outs in the bottom of the eighth.
Nola gave up four runs on five hits and two walks while striking out eight over five-plus innings.
–Jerry Beach, Field Level Media
