By David Pitt
DNAinfo Editor
MANHATTAN — The weather forecast for the Memorial Day weekend calls for generally moderate temperatures across much of the country, but if the Mets keep playing the way they’ve been for the last five games, it’s going to be a scorcher wherever they are.
On Thursday night, the Mets’ red-hot pitching staff stopped the Philadelphia Phillies cold at Citi Field, leading the team to their fifth straight win — and capping an improbable three-game shutout sweep of the two-time defending National League champions.
The series catapulted the latest incarnation of the Amazin’s (25-23) to within two games of the Phillies (26-20), who had been sitting comfortably atop the National League East until they met New York. Philadelphia had not lost in three straight shutouts since 1983.
The Phillies haven’t scored a run against New York in 31 innings.
The Mets open a six-game road trip Friday night in Milwaukee.
New York starter Mike Pelfrey, who pitched seven scoreless innings in Thursday’s 3-0 win, was informed after the game that the last time the team's pitching staff had taken a three-game shutout from the same team was in 1969, when the starting pitchers were Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Nolan Ryan, MLB.com reported.
“Those guys aren’t bad, are they?” Pelfrey told MLB.com.
Pelfrey’s win was preceded by shutout performances on Tuesday and Wednesday by starters R.A. Dickey and Hisanori Takahashi.
The Mets’ three runs Thursday night were largely the work of Jose Reyes, who scored on a single by ex-Red Sox slugger Jason Bay and later doubled home two more runs. Outfielder Angel Pagan had two hits.
Relievers Pedro Feliciano and Francisco Rodriguez closed out the eighth and ninth innings to the loudest, most rapturous cheers the Mets have yet to hear at Citi Field in this young season.
“It was the most amazing series I’ve ever been a part of,” right-fielder Jeff Francoeur told MLB.com.
The Mets have not allowed a run by any team since the ninth inning Subway Series clincher against the Yankees on Sunday. The Yankees, who defeated the Phillies in last year’s World Series, lost two of the three games to the Mets last week.
The Mets are the first Major League team to take a three-game series with shutout victories since 2004, when the Twins swept the Royals.
