The Mets will try to continue their winning ways tonight against the Marlins. The Mets will be sending Perez to the mound who will try again to get his 10th win of the season. He will be going toe to toe with Volstad, a rookie pitcher on the Marlins. They will need to pitch and hit their way to keep pace in the tight NL East.
Perez has been very good since July 24th. From that date till now, he is 3-1 over 7 games with an ERA of 3.13. More impressive to me is his BB to K ratio over that span, 16 BB to 47 K, which is nearly a 3 K to 1 BB ratio. Thats the type of accuracy he needs on the mound to get deep into games and to lead the Mets to victory. One of those games during that stretch, one of his Wins, was against the Marlins where he allowed 1 run over 6 innings while walking 3 and striking out 5. Overall this year, he is 3-0 over 4 games and 25 innings pitched against the Marlins. His ERA during these games is an amazing 2.16. Here are some Marlin stats against Perez:
Ramirez 7-29, 2B, HR, 2 BB, 10 K
Uggla 6-25, 2 2B
Ross 8-22 (.364), 2 2B, 3 HR
Gonzalez 4-18, 2 2B, 4 K
Jacobs 1-9, 5 K
The main batter to worry about here is Ross. Ross is a Met killer. If the Mets can keep him under control, then they should be fine. Even with Perez's success against this team, this lineup is dangerous, which is something the bullpen will have to worry about. I am very impressed with Perez's ability to keep Ramirez under control, and Jacobs for that matter as well.
The Mets will have to figure out Volstad to get a victory tonight. They have never seen Volstad before, who made his debut this year and has only pitched in 9 games (8 starts). This season he is 4-3 over 50 innings and has a nice 3.42 ERA. In August, he is 2-2 over 5 games, with a 4.28 ERA. So the Mets will have to face the unknown pitcher and they will have to hit him hard. Just like in any game, a goal should be to strike early (the part the Mets have down), strike often (the Mets still need some work on that), and strike late (they really need work with that).
The following are a few Mets stats throughout the Month of August. Each batter here has played in 25 games this month:
Delgado 94 AB, 7 HR, 24 RBI, .277 BA, .367 OBP, .553 SLG
Reyes 113 AB, 4 2B, 4 3B, HR, 6 RBI, 7 BB, 8 SB, .319 BA, .358, OBP, .451 SLG
Wright 99 AB, 9 2B, 5 HR, 17 RBI, .293 BA, .363 OBP, .535 SLG
No surprise that all of these numbers look good. These are the numbers that all of us hope we see carry on tonight and throughout September and possibly into October.
