It’s hard to find a streakier team in baseball than the New York Mets who may have turned the corner out of their latest cold spell with their weekend set against the Athletics. Still well under-.500, aspirations are not high for the Mets in 2017, but they’ll still try to keep things going as they travel across the country, kicking off a three-city road trip with a best of four set against the San Diego Padres.
This series will be contested from Monday, July 24, 2017 through Thursday, July 27, 2017 at Petco Park in San Diego.
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Pitching Matchups
The Mets rotation lined up for this series is closer to what the team expected to trot out to the mound everyday rather than the rotation that’s pitched to a 4.87 ERA.
New York will send Jacob deGrom to the mound on Monday and then will follow with Seth Lugo, Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler.
deGrom has been the steady arm in the rotation this whole season and was an All-Star snub. The right-hander is 11-3 for a sub-.500 club, pitching to a 3.37 ERA and 1.178 WHIP in 19 games. More recently, he’s allowed more than a single run in just one of his last seven starts. He is 7-0 in those starts. His command has been impeccable, too. He’s walked four in his last five games.
The Mets’ ace will matchup against Clayton Richard. The veteran southpaw has the best groundball rate in the NL, but his 5-10 record and 5.35 ERA leave plenty to be desired.
Richard is capable of pitching well, shutting out the Dodgers in eight, holding the Diamondbacks to a single run in nine frames, and had a one-run, six-inning outing as recently as July 7. His latest start, however, was a complete disaster. He allowed 11 runs—10 earned—on 14 hits in just 3.2 innings.
Can Richard bounce back from that outing? And, if he can, can he outpitch deGrom? He’s had a few excellent starts, but deGrom is far more consistent.
As the series moves on, the second game will feature Lugo and Jhoulys Chacin.
Lugo has pitched to a 2.60 ERA in his last three outings. He’s a curveball machine and with the Padres’ young hitters, that could be an issue. They cannot sit on the fastball with Lugo.
Chacin is throwing the ball well right now. He’s pitched to a 2.72 ERA in his last nine starts and has loved pitching at Petco where his ERA is under two.
Game 3 of this series will feature Matz against Trevor Cahill. If fully healthy and at his best, Cahill is probably the Padres’ best starter. He, however, wasn’t quite right in his last start and the Giants tagged him for six runs in 3.2 innings.
Matz has had similar recent struggles, posting a 13.06 ERA in his last three games. That said, the right-hander was nails in his last start against San Diego, pitching 7.1 scoreless frames.
The series will conclude on Thursday with Wheeler trying to make things right. The Padres haven’t announced their starter for the game.
Wheeler is 0-5 in his last six starts with a 6.70 ERA in that span. His last win came in mid-May and he has become Matt Harvey 2.0, losing his ability to record outs consistently despite great stuff.
Offensive Comparison
Looking at the names and the season stats of the individual players, it’s clear that the Mets have the better—and more powerful—offensive team.
The season stats for both teams bear that out, but here in July, the Mets and Padres have scored nearly the same number of runs even though New York has hit six more homers.
The Mets live and die by the longball. Jay Bruce has been great, hitting 25 homers and 65 RBIs. Lucas Duda has 17 homers in only 71 games. In fact, there are 10 different players on the Mets’ roster with at least nine homers as the team has balanced several injuries.
Right now, Neil Walker is the only key starter on the DL.
For San Diego, the lineup is vastly diminished. Yangervis Solarte, Manuel Margot and Austin Hedges are all on the DL.
Matt Szczur has embraced the playing time in San Diego and has been an above-average performer. Jose Pirela has hit since his promotion. Still, despite it all, this lineup is essentially Wil Myers and cast of other characters.
Breaking down the bullpen
It’s almost a guarantee that Brad Hand will be traded before the deadline. Will he make it through this series? Maybe, but does it matter?
Hand has been a great lefty setup man. Kirby Yates has thrived in his role, but Brandon Maurer remains the Padres’ closer even with a 5.72 ERA. Jose Torress and Kevin Quackenbush are still getting innings.
New York’s pen is equally in question. Addison Reed seems like a lock to go somewhere before the deadline. The closer was forced into the role due to injuries and has done well, but the Mets have been unable to find consistency feeding into the ninth inning so a number of games have been lost before the ball even got into Reed’s hand.
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