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John Maine reached his pitch limit after five innings Monday afternoon, leaving his 2-0 lead in the hands of a bullpen that couldn’t close the door. The result was a 5-2 loss that moves the idle Phillies up to 1 1/2 games behind the first-place Mets.
Maine pitched five innings of two-hit ball and left with the shutout intact, but was pulled when his pitch count reached 96. A third-inning single he gave up to Freddy Sanchez moved our NoNoHitters.com count up to 7,445 Mets games without a no-hitter.
That left four innings for the Mets’ bullpen, and that didn’t work. Brian Stokes gave up three hits (one of them a two-run home run) in 1 1/3 innings of work.
Pedro Feliciano was charged with one earned run after giving up a one-out single in the eighth. He was followed by Duaner Sanchez who yielded two singles, a double and an intentional walk for two earned runs.
