PHILADELPHIA -- The ball gobbled up David Wright, pushing all his weight in the opposite direction of the one he wanted to go. Had Wright dived for the ball, he might have been able to clamor to his feet and put enough zip on it to retire Peter Bourjos. He also might have missed it entirely.
As it was, Wright fielded Bourjos' grounder in the 11th inning Wednesday, jumped, twisted and fired a strike to Lucas Duda. But with his weight carrying him in the opposite direction, there was not nearly enough muscle on the throw. Bourjos reached first base with relative ease, as Freddy Galvis scored the winning run in the Mets' 5-4 loss to the Phillies.
"I know the chances of getting him out on that play are pretty impossible," Wright said.

So much of the Mets' loss turned out to be a matter of inches. Had Wright been standing a pace to his left, he might have made a play to send things to the 12th. Or had he ventured a few inches closer to the fence earlier in the at-bat, when Bourjos lifted a first-pitch popup into foul ground, the Mets might have won their marathon with the Phillies. As it was, Wright stopped just short of the wall as the ball plunked down a whisper from his glove.
"Did I have a chance at it? I missed it by about six inches or so," Wright said. "Tried to get back over there and reach it, but it hit probably about six inches away from my glove."
So it went throughout the later innings of a night that snapped the Mets' three-game winning streak. Earlier in the 11th, Mets catcher Travis d'Arnaud could not block a Hansel Robles wild pitch that put Galvis at third base in the first place. Inches. In the top of the inning, Wright hit a booming drive to center that manager Terry Collins thought for sure was gone. Instead, it died on the warning track, dousing the Mets' hopes at retaking the lead. Inches.
Wright finished 0-for-6 with four strikeouts, even if he did hit that and another ball hard. For the most part, the Mets' offense evaporated following consecutive homers from Yoenis Cespedes and Duda in the fifth inning -- the third straight night Duda was involved in back-to-back shots.

Outside of that, the Mets' only offense came in the second, when Asdrubal Cabrera hit what umpires originally ruled a three-run homer. But a crew-chief review overturned the play on the grounds of fan interference, on a ball that came within -- naturally -- inches of clearing the fence on the fly.

An inch or two on that play. A few more on Wright's warning-track shot. Some more on Bourjos' pop. All of it funneled into the final play of the game -- a few inches too many for the Mets to overcome.
"He's one of the fastest guys in the game, so I knew just catch and release," Wright said. "I was able to make a good throw, just not nearly in time."