Michael Conforto uncorked the baseball at 91.1 mph, firing home with as much strength as he could muster. From 276 feet on the fly, Conforto’s throw landed directly into catcher Wilson Ramos’ mitt.

It wasn’t enough.

As Ramos caught the ball, he swung his left arm toward the baseline, but never lowered it to the dirt. Racing home at a sprint speed that reached an elite 30.2 feet per second, Roman Quinn slid his hand underneath Ramos’ glove, skimming the plate before Ramos applied the tag. It was the final play in the Mets’ 6-5 loss to the Phillies on Friday at Citizens Bank Park, resulting in a walk-off single for Bryce Harper.

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“From our view, it looked like an out, and then when we saw it on the big screen, we saw the hand come in,” Mets manager Luis Rojas said, noting that he challenged the play simply because there was no reason not to. “We want to see the replay, to see if Wilson could have used some of the momentum of the throw to block the plate. It’s something we probably want to do on a play like that.”

The Mets did not make Ramos available for comment following the loss, but Rojas indicated his catcher could potentially have done more with a throw that beat Quinn to the plate.

“As you’re going to apply the tag, there’s some things that you can do there that are perfectly legal,” Rojas said.

That the Mets were in that position in the first place was due to Robinson Canó, who singled home the tying run in the ninth inning after the Mets trailed for much of the game. Starting in place of injured two-time National League Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, Walker Lockett allowed a three-run home run to J.T. Realmuto in the fifth inning, undoing the back-to-back homers that Dominic Smith and Canó had hit in the third.

Suddenly in possession of new life in the ninth, however, the Mets turned to de facto closer Seth Lugo, who allowed singles to the first two batters he faced before rebounding to strike out Rhys Hoskins. That brought up Harper, who lined a hit in front of Conforto in right. Quinn, one of the fastest players in the Majors, raced around third base and headed home as Conforto fielded the ball in enough time to throw him out. But Ramos could not apply the tag.

“I wasn’t sure he was going to make it,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said. “I really wasn’t. But I thought it was a good send. You take that chance. It worked out. It’s a really good slide. The thing about Roman is when he slid, he didn’t decelerate, he accelerated through the bag, which was probably the difference.”

Rojas said he had considered pinch-hitting for Ramos, who is in a 2-for-21 slide at the plate, in the top of the ninth, but his trust in the veteran catcher outweighed the potential benefit of using one of the Mets’ most productive hitters, J.D. Davis, in that spot. Had Rojas made that substitution, Tomás Nido -- a superior defensive catcher who hit a grand slam and logged six RBIs in the Mets’ Thursday win over the Nationals -- would have been behind the plate to receive the decisive throw.

Instead, Rojas went with the more conventional move of sticking with Ramos, and the Mets again lost ground in the tight NL East.

“Mike made a great throw and Roman Quinn, he’s so fast,” Lugo said. “He just got under the tag. I thought we played that pretty well. I thought we played a pretty good game. That’s a tough loss right there.”