On to their first interleague series of the season, the New York Mets will host the Minnesota Twins in Citi Field looking for better results than in 2018 when they went 8-12 against the AL. Meanwhile, the Twins just lost two of three against the Phillies and will continue their tour through the NL East in this series.
Can the Twins have better success against the Mets than the Phillies or will New York roll over Minnesota with Nelson Cruz on the bench while their aces deliver? It’ll be an interesting series against two teams many have on the outside looking in, both of whom are looking to build of solid starts.
The brief two-game series between the Twins and Mets starts on Tuesday, April 9, 2019 at the Citi Field, with first pitch slated for 7:10 p.m. ET. Game 2 will be the following night at the same time and place.
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Odds Analysis
The Twins and Mets both come into this series fresh off a loss, but both teams find themselves a bit over-.500 in this early stretch.
While neither team was necessarily the favorites in their division this season, both had some experts picking them to win their divisions and thus both teams have some hopes for the year.
Offensively, the Mets have gotten off to a better start, but both are sitting around or just above league average in the early going. Last year, Minnesota was okay offensively, but the Mets were terrible.
New York made a ton of moves in the offseason to help the offense. The Twins made a couple of their own.
For Minnesota, one of those moves was adding Nelson Cruz to the DH spot, but with no DH in the NL, he’ll either need to ride the bench of pick up a glove to get into the lineup in this series.
Even at 38-years old, Cruz has a monster bat. He’s hit at least 37 home runs in five straight seasons and has an OPS of .850 or better in each year. That’s hard to match, but he’s a liability defensively in the outfield and if he plays the outfield that means two of Jake Cave, Eddie Rosario or Max Kepler sits. Rosario is off to a slow start, but a very good hitter when he’s right. Kepler already has a three homers this year. Cruz didn’t start in the series in Philadelphia.
If that stays the same against the Mets, the Twins will lose a huge middle-of-the-order bat they’re used to having in the lineup. With Rosario, Marwin Gonzalez and Jason Castro all struggling out of the gate, adding a pitcher to the mix hurts even more.
Fortunately, Jorge Polanco is swinging a hot bat with a cycle this past weekend. He’s got a .387 average and 1.151 OPS. Byron Buxton has also been good with a .313 average, looking like the version we saw to end the 2017 season rather than the one was lost all last year.
On the other side of the offense, the Mets are dealing with some injuries, but they’ve insulated themselves with enough depth they’re not feeling it.
Pete Alonso has been a godsend at first and slide into the top of the order successfully hitting for power, average and getting on base. Meanwhile we’ve seen a few homers from Robinson Cano despite a slow start overall and J.D. Davis has been a beast at the hot corner.
Probable Pitchers
The Twins will bring their lineup, missing a key cog, to Citi Field and will have to face Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard on back-to-back days in this brief two-game series. That’s not an easy task.
deGrom comes into this game having thrown 13 scoreless innings this season and 26 total scoreless frames dating back to last year. He’s 2-0 with a -0.28 FIP and 0.769 WHIP in the early going of 2019. That’s on the heels of a historic season where he was just 10-9, but pitched to a 1.70 ERA with a 1.99 FIP and 0.912 WHIP in 217 innings.
Despite a lackluster win-loss record, he had one of the best seasons in recent memory and earned a well-deserved Cy Young Award. He’s also now just one quality start away from the all-time record.
deGrom had little run support and a weak bullpen behind him last year. This year, he has a much improved lineup generating runs and a much better bullpen protecting his leads.
The 30-year old right-hander is comfortable in New York and just signed an extension to stay there. In his career, he’s pitched to a 2.14 ERA in 450 innings at home. Meanwhile, he has a 2.19 career ERA in April.
Compared to deGrom, it gets easier in Game 2 when the Twins face Syndergaard, but not by much. Syndergaard is younger and throws harder than deGrom though he hasn’t quite been able to put it all together—or stay healthy—like deGrom.
Still, the flame throwing right-hander was 13-4 with a 3.03 ERA and 1.212 WHIP in 25 starts over 154.1 innings last season. He’s got a 2.97 career ERA in five years.
So far in 2019, Syndergaard has allowed six runs in 12 innings with 13 strikeouts, eight hits and two walks. He’s also allowed a pair of home runs which is worth watching as historically Syndergaard has been stingy with both the walks and homers. The righty is coming off allowing two runs and a single hit in six innings his last start.
That’s quite a tandem to deal with in a two-game series and the Twins don’t have the arms to matchup with that kind of duo. Minnesota will counter those two with their own pair of right-handers in Kyle Gibson and Jake Odorizzi.
Gibson gets the start in the first game of the set and will look to accomplish the impossible task of outdueling deGrom.
The righty did have 18 quality starts last year and hurled a 3.62 ERA, both of those numbers led the Twins’ staff, but he had a rough first outing in 2019, giving up five runs in the fifth inning against Kansas City, eventually getting knocked out of the game. The Royals aren’t a good offense and the Mets’ bats will likely provide a bigger challenge. Minnesota will hope Gibson brings better stuff to the mound.
While Gibson had his best year last year, with an ERA+ of 121, he had a 4.13 FIP and 1.302 WHIP indicating that some of his numbers came on luck.
Over his career, Gibson has been a bit inconsistent year-to-year, but largely a slightly below average pitcher with a career 93 ERA+. Even if his last season was real, however, he’s still a long ways away form being an ace.
As for Odorizzi, the former Rays right-hander was hindered by rain in his last start and lasted just two outs, giving up five runs in a loss to the Phillies. He looked much better in his first start of the season, holding the Indians to one run in six innings while striking out 11, but that likely says more about the Tribe’s dismal offensive start.
Odorizzi did make a few tweaks in the offseason and did look good in spring training so he could have a better year than last year, but he’s still coming off a season where he was 7-10 with a 4.49 ERA and 1.345 WHIP in 164.1 innings.
Largely a middle-of-the-rotation innings eater starter in his career. His best ERA+ in any season came in 2015 with the Rays at 115. Since then, the number has steadily dropped until it hit 97 last season, pegging him more as a No.4 starter than anything else.
Live Betting
The Mets have the advantage in the starting pitching and have a strong enough offense to at least break even there. The one area that is of concern is the bullpen.
New York bulked up the pen in the offseason with a trade for Edwin Diaz and signings of Jeurys Familia and Justin Wilson. Those three can shorten the came to seven innings which may be enough for Syndergaard and deGrom. If the Twins can get to the pen earlier, however, Robert Gsellman, Seth Lugo and Luis Avilian are off to slow starts to the season.
Still, on paper, this is a strong and deep bullpen.
The Twins’ pen seems to come up short on paper, but in practice is probably better than the sum of the parts.
Minnesota’s bullpen arms don’t have much notoriety, but Trevor May pitched very well last year and is off to a good start. The team has been able to find reliable bullpen arms in recent years. May, Trevor Hildenberger and Taylor Rogers have all shown some early signs of what they could be this year. In the closer’s role Blake Parker is hardly sexy, but he’s still a solid arm.
Really, the Twins need to avoid the middle or long innings with Adalberto Meija and Martin Perez they’re the ones throwing off the bullpen ERA numbers here in 2019 for Minnesota.
MLB Pick
Take the Mets to sweep the brief two game series at home. Home field advantage is certainly part of the equation, but much bigger than that, the tandem of deGrom and Syndergaard are taking the mound, giving New York a sizeable advantage in the rotation.
Both deGrom and Syndergaard can go six or seven innings a starter, shortening the game for the bullpen which has had some trouble in the middle, but has three closers in the back-end.
Look for the Twins’ offense to struggle against the Mets pitching and scratch across only a few runs all series. New York won’t need to score big to win this series, they’ll just need a few runs a game and that’s certainly within the realm of possibility given how deep the lineup is with Alonso, Wilson Ramos, Cano and Michael Conforto.
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