The Mets start up their last regular season series tonight at Shea Stadium against the Marlins, who want to play spoiler. Tonight will pit Pelfrey against Volstad. Like I said early today, this is the start of the Pre-Post Season 2008. With the emotions riding high for the last series at Shea and the postseason hopes, this will the be the first of several games that we will remember for a while.
Pelfrey is trying to be the second pitcher on the Mets staff to reach 200 innings pitched in the regular season. He is 12-1- with a 3.70 ERA and on the season he has 194.2 innings pitched. Over his last five he is 0-2, has pitched 31.2 innings and has a 3.69 ERA. He has struggled against the Marlins this year (4 G, 0-3, 19.1 innings pitched, 7.91 ERA) but in his last start agaisnt them, he was able to push all of that out of his head and pitched 6.2 innings, allow 2 runs on 6 hits, 2 BB and 5 K. Here are their stats against him:
Ramierez 2-20, HR
Jacobs 7-17, 3 2B
Uggla 7-16, 4 2B
Hermida 3-11, 3B, 4 BB
He has to control them. he was able to do it last time, he just has to do it again. We have seen Pelfrey grow this year, and now it is time to see if he can step it up in a big game.
On the Marlins' side of the rubber, they have Volstad, 5-4 starting and making his 14 appearence (13 starts) over 78.1 IP and 3.10 ERA. In his last five games he has been very good with a 1-1 record over 28.1 innings ptiched and a 2.54 ERA. In one start against the Mets this year, he went 6.1 innings, allowed one run, allowed 3 walks and struck out 5. The Marlins would eventually lose that ballgame. Here are some limited Mets numbers against him, because this is Volstad's rookie season:
Beltran 1-2, RBI
Castillo 1-3
Reyes 1-3
Wright 1-3
The Mets have to build off of last night, as the Daily News said it, they had a “Never Shea Die” attitude last night as when they had runners on and 2 outs, they got those 2 tieing runs across the plate. The fought back. Now they need to do that again tonight and keep winning. Lets Go Mets! Fry the Fish!
