It’s not a powerhouse matchup, but it may be exactly the matchup the New York Mets need right now as they get set to host a three-game set beginning on Tuesday against a San Diego Padres with the worst record in Major League Baseball. The Mets continue to be decimated by injury and the pitching continues to get more and more suspect.
This series will be contested from Tuesday, May 23, 2017 through Thursday, May 25, 2017 at Citi Field in New York.
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Pitching Matchups
It’s amazing what a couple of months can do.
Back in the spring, the Mets were supposed to be contenders on the strength of their starting rotation. They were stacked with talent with Zack Wheeler coming back and Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman coming off strong seasons. The team had six very good options for five spots, then injuries and ineffectiveness took over.
Right now, the Mets rank dead last in baseball in team ERA and second from last in starter’s ERA at 5.18. Tommy Milone, Rafael Montero and Adam Wilk have all gotten starts.
In this series, none of them will go, but the Mets will hope and pray on Matt Harvey and Robert Gsellman in the first two games of the series before turning the ball to one of the only good pitcher’s left on this staff in Jacob deGrom to start on Thursday.
Harvey will kick off the series with a 2-3 record and 5.56 ERA. He’s actually been even worse than those numbers. His WHIP is 1.478 as he’s walking 4.4 per nine innings. His strike out to walk ratio is a dismal 1.41 while his FIP of 6.41 shows his defense has bailed him out of even more trouble.
The confidence shown by the young right-hander when he first came up is long gone. He looked like a true ace at one time. Now, his velocity is down, command is gone and movement has left. That leaves either a relatively slow fat pitch in the middle of the zone or a bunch of pitches out of the zone without enough movement to fool even an average hitter too often. Things continue to get worse and worse. After his suspension, he’s made two starts and has gone 10.1 innings, allowing eight runs on 13 hits and nine walks with four home runs allowed. Sure, this Padres’ team cannot hit, but it seems nearly anyone can hit off Harvey these days.
As for Gsellman, his ERA is even worse. He may not even make this start and would certainly be back in the minors if the Mets had any other options. His last two games have been out of the pen and that’s helped lower his ERA to 6.75, it’s 7.27 as a starter. Two scoreless frames against the Angels on Saturday is encouraging, but he’s allowed three runs or more in every start with all but one being five innings or fewer.
By the time this team gets to deGrom on Thursday, the bullpen will be exhausted. They’ll need deGrom to go deep. He was the first Mets’ hurler to go more than six innings in 18 games his last time out, but he’s only done that himself in three of his nine starts this year.
Still, he’s at least a sure thing to get into the sixth with a chance to win. He’s 3-1 with a 3.56 ERA and leads the league in strikeouts with 76 in 55.2 innings. His 12.3 strikeout per nine ratio is well above his career norm. His ratio was just 8.7 last year.
So, the first two games of this series are open for the Padres to try and sneak out a win. They’ll need the struggling Mets’ hurlers to help them win. Jhoulys Chacin gets the start on Tuesday and has been terrible on the road. He’s pitched to an 8.67 ERA away from home, meaning Tuesday could be a slugfest.
As for Wednesday, Jarred Cosart is coming off his best start of the year. He came off the DL to go five innings, giving up just one run to a very good hitting Brewers team. He’ll be able to go a bit deeper in his second start back should he find similar success.
ESPN has Andrew Lockett likely to make Thursday’s start for the Padres. Like the Mets, it’s all-hands-on-deck for this rotation.
The youngster would be making his first big league appearance in the game. He’s been okay in Triple-A with a 4.35 ERA in nine starts, but has given up nine home runs and recorded just 29 strikeouts in 49.2 innings.
Lineup Issues
The Mets are an okay offensive group, but the DL list keeps growing and now may include Jose Reyes who just collected his 2,000th career hit.
Hitting just .205, Reyes was getting on base—finally—after a really bad start and if he’s out, it’s back to the Michael Conforto show.
Conforto is hitting for average, power and even leading the team in stolen bases. He’s batting .320 with 11 home runs and 27 RBIs. He’s behind Jay Bruce in both homers and RBIs, but Bruce’s streaky bat has started to cool as his average is now just .248, Conforto’s bat continues to chug along.
With Bruce slowing and Lucas Duda hitting just .202, the team’s next best bat may be relegated to the bench. T.J. Rivera looked good filling in for Duda.
Even without Yoenis Cespedes and others, the Mets do at least have more thump, and average, than the Padres.
For San Diego, it’s Wil Myers and nothing else. Myers is hitting .278 and has a .862 OPS, but he’s the only player other than Allen Cordoba with an OPS+ north of 90.
The Padres have gotten some thump from Austin Hedges, Ryan Schimipf and Hunter Renfroe, but of those three, Renfroe has the best average at .218, so they’re all three all-or-nothing hitters, a common trait in this order.
Bullpen Blowups
The Mets have an average offense based on total runs scored and the Padres are near the bottom of the pack in that stat as they are in most, but we could still see a high scoring series given the struggles of the starting pitchers outlined above and the equally embarrassing bullpens.
These two teams are neck-and-neck near the bottom of baseball in bullpen ERAs, topping only Seattle and Washington. The Padres have the slight edge on the Mets at 5.06 compared to 5.08, but they’re effectively just as ineffectively.
For San Diego, it’s Brad Hand and not much else. The closer has a 6.88 ERA and Ryan Buchter, a target for several teams at the deadline last year, has had a few issues lately, too, though he’s at least sporting a 1.038 WHIP, even if it is supported by an unsustainably low BABIP.
For the Mets, it’s a shallow group of guys without the best arm—again. Addison Reed is fine to slide into the closer’s role, but with that, the team loses its only reliable arm other than Jerry Blevins who is the very definition of the term LOOGY. He’s good for one batter only and cannot be counted on against righties.
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