Phillies fight past Mets, 2-1, after José Alvarado prompts dugouts to empty

José Alvarado pumped the third strike past Dominic Smith on Friday night, turned toward the outfield and hollered. He started the at-bat by throwing three straight balls before battling back to strike out the Mets left fielder to finish the eighth inning of a 2-1 Phillies win.

But Alvarado was not content to just shout into the night. He turned back to Smith, who was returning to the visiting dugout in South Philly after leaving two runners on base, and yelled at him. Smith turned back and lifted his helmet as Alvarado held out his arms and removed his hat.

The inning was over, but Alvarado wasn’t finished yet. He was ready to go. The players exchanged words earlier this season in New York after Smith objected to Alvarado hitting Michael Conforto. The tension, more than two weeks later, was still simmering.

“I don’t think we forget those types of things,” Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins said. “If guys come at us, that’s stuff that we don’t forget. I don’t expect there to be any carryover into tomorrow other than the fact that it’s the Phillies and the Mets, and that’s what it is.”

Both dugouts and bullpens emptied as the players stormed toward home plate. Alvarado had to be pulled away from the fray. The Phillies were missing four regulars from their lineup and had two key relievers unavailable, but they still fought to win the series opener and end April in first place.

“Him pointing at me, coming after me, and stuff like that, I’m a grown man. Come meet me if you really have a problem and we can really handle it,” Smith said. “That’s how I look at that issue. He waited for his team to grab him and stuff. I’m right there. He can meet me in the tunnel tomorrow if he really wants to get after it.”

Mets manager Luis Rojas said Alvarado was “instigating a little bit” and out of line.

“You get your [strikeout], you did what you have to do, you get off the field and let the game go,” Rojas said.

The dugouts emptied again in the bottom of the inning after Mets reliever Miguel Castro walked Hoskins, who took exception to Castro throwing inside for the third and fourth balls of the walk. Hoskins said something to Castro and the pitcher walked toward first base before being pulled away by teammates.

“Nothing happened. A couple balls were a little close and nobody likes that. But it’s nothing. Emotions were high,” Hoskins said. “That’s how these division games are. It doesn’t matter if it’s April or September. It seems like we always have these dogfight games, especially against the Mets.”

The Phillies played without Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Didi Gregorius, and Jean Segura but all four players could return as early as Saturday.

» READ MORE: Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto injured his left hand on wild pitch that sealed Thursday’s loss

They played the 26th game of the season with a lineup of reinforcements. The Phils had just three hits, came up empty in their only five chances with runners in scoring position, and struck out 12 times. Yet the Phillies still won.

“It’s a big win,” Hoskins said. “It’s a testament to the guys who come in and work everyday and don’t know if their number is going to be called. Today, it was and they showed up. We needed that. We need every win that we can get, but especially a win at the start of a division series at home is huge for the rest of the weekend.”

Both of their runs scored on a passed ball charged to Mets catcher James McCann after Chase Anderson, the starting pitcher, swung at strike three.

It would have been the third out of the second inning, but Marcus Stroman’s slider bounced off the umpire’s leg and away from McCann after Anderson whiffed. Bench coach Rob Thomson, who managed the Phillies on Friday while Joe Girardi attended his daughter’s graduation, called it a “fortuitous strikeout passed ball.”

Brad Miller and Andrew Knapp scored. Anderson was safe at first. The Phillies, on a night when they would be hard pressed to score, took it.

The Phillies will try Saturday to win back-to-back games for the first time since April 5. Harper, Realmuto, Gregorius, and maybe even Segura could be in the lineup. They returned Friday to .500 for the eighth time this season and have not had a winning record since April 18.

Anderson gave the Phillies five scoreless innings, and the one pitch he threw in the sixth inning made him the first pitcher besides Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, and Zach Eflin to pitch past the fifth inning. That one pitch resulted in a single by Pete Alonso, who would go on to score the Mets’ lone run. Anderson allowed just one hit, struck out six, and walked two. But perhaps just as importantly, he went 0-for-2 with a strikeout that yielded two runs.

“It was a nasty pitch,” Anderson said. “I swung because I knew it was close. It hit the umpire’s leg and I said, ‘I have to go to first.’ I ran and it worked out for us.”

It seemed hard to imagine the Phillies outslugging the Mets with a lineup missing so many regulars. But that wasn’t the only way they could win.

They instead took the two runs the Mets gave them and turned it over to their pitchers. Anderson and four relievers -- JoJo Romero, Alvarado, Brandon Kintzler, Alvarado, and Sam Coonrod -- combined to hold the Mets in check.

Héctor Neris and Connor Brogdon were both unavailable Friday, so the Phillies turned to Coonrod for the ninth. An inning earlier, he ran from the bullpen to join his teammates in support of Alvarado. And now he was tasked with recording the final three outs.

On Wednesday night in St. Louis, Coonrod had to be held back by teammates as he tried to leave the Phillies’ dugout and go after the Cardinals. He throws 100 mph and he’s emotional.

But Thomson never doubted that Coonrod could keep his composure on Friday. He retired three of the four batters he faced and the Phillies fought for a win.

“I told myself before I went in, no matter what, just keep it under control and stay calm,” Coonrod said. “Even after we got done there, I didn’t really get too excited. Tried to stay under control as much as possible.”

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