NEW YORK -- The Mets fell behind against the Phillies on Tuesday, watched their recently acquired setup man blow another lead and were tasked with solving one of baseball's best closers. In the end, they overcame each hurdle and continued their prolonged dominance over their National League East foes at Citi Field, beating the Phillies 6-5 on Brandon Nimmo's walk-off single off Jhoan Duran.
Going back to last season, New York has beaten Philadelphia in nine straight home games, including the postseason. Tuesday's victory cut the Phillies' lead in the division to five games with five regular-season games remaining between the clubs, including Wednesday night's series finale.
"We just continue to punch back," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said.
To counter, a team must score, and the Mets have scored in bunches lately after a prolonged offensive slide. New York leads the majors with 98 runs scored since Aug. 12, a promising outburst for a club with marquee names but frustrating results for much of the season.
"The bats have been really coming alive over the last seven to 10 days," Nimmo said. "We're doing great on the road and come home and continue it. I think it's just a testament to the guys paying attention to the little things."
The Mets beat Duran with four straight singles without recording an out, getting line drives from Starling Marte and Pete Alonso, a 3-2 bloop single from Brett Baty and Nimmo's game-winning slash the other way. Duran, whose fastball hit 102 mph, was knocked out after 12 pitches.
"We know what this offense is capable of," Nimmo said. "It's just going out and executing on a daily basis. And offense has ups and downs, so you're going to go through that during a season. But what we'd really like is for things to keep going well and keep things going in the playoffs. I've always said that the hottest team wins in the playoffs. It doesn't matter who's the best team. It's the hottest team."
The timely hitting and Edwin Díaz's five-out effort out of the bullpen counterbalanced another short start from Sean Manaea and continued woes for reliever Ryan Helsley.
Manaea yielded two runs on six hits and compiled eight strikeouts to zero walks, but his pitch count skyrocketed early and he lasted just 4⅔ innings. He has yet to complete six innings in nine starts this season. He has failed to log five innings in four of them.
"I feel like I'm getting in good counts, just not putting guys away," Manaea said.
Helsley, a hard-throwing right-hander acquired at the trade deadline, gave up a tying two-run homer to former Met Harrison Bader in the eighth inning. Helsley has allowed 10 earned runs in 11 appearances with the Mets, good for a 10.38 ERA across 8⅔ innings.
"People got to step up," Mendoza said. "People got to do their job. We just got to get [Helsley] right. Too good of stuff for them to be taking really good swings on fastballs, really good takes on the sliders. So we got to look back and see what we're missing here because for teams to have comfortable at-bats like that, something's going on here that we have to figure out."
Díaz relieved Helsley with a runner on second and one out. That runner, Bryson Stott, stole second and third base, but Díaz, unbothered, struck out Brandon Marsh and Trea Turner to escape. He followed with a clean ninth inning, striking out Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper in the process, to set the stage for the Mets to ambush Duran.
"Where we are at now in the season, every game is super important," Mendoza said. "Our job is to continue to win series. We got an opportunity to do something here against a pretty good team that's in front of us."