Game Preview: Mets @ Marlins

Sunday was fun. Monday was fun. Fun is fun!
The Mets rolled into Miami very, very early Monday morning in a virtual tie for first place with the Nationals and quickly erased any concerns that traveling all night would cause them to show up flat. Colon looked like a different pitcher compared to the one that pitched last Wednesday as he held the Marlins to one run over 8.0 innings. Conforto, now able to bat 8 in the lineup, kicked things off for the offense with a 3-run bomb and Cespedes had a breakout Mets game with three doubles and 4 RBIs as the Mets routed the Marlins 12-1.

Jon Niese looks to keep the good times going, he’s 5-9 over 121.1 innings over 20 starts with a 3.63 ERA this season. In his last start he held the Padres to 1 ER over 6.0 innings with 6 K’s, but we all know what eventually happened in that start. It was a good bounce back from his previous start where he allowed 6 ER over 3.0 innings. His one start against the Marlins this year was a forgettable one where he allowed 4 ER, 5 total, over 4.0 innings but it was also during that awful stretch he had in May. The Marlins have the following numbers against Niese:

Prado 7-35, 4 2B, 3B
McGehee 3-15, 2B
Solano 6-16, 3 2B
Hechavarria 4-14, 3B
Yelich 5-12, 2B
Gordon 4-7, 3B
Dietrich 1-6, 3 K

The Mets bats will look to keep it going against Brad Hand who is 1-2 over 27 games, 3 starts over 45.2 innings with a 5.12 ERA. Hand has spent most of his time as a reliever this season and probably won’t see an extreme amount of pitches this outing. He had a string of starts between May 27 and June 8 where he allowed 8 ER over 11.2 innings, which is heavily influenced by a game where he allowed 6 ER over 0.2 innings (so outside of that he was great). He appeared against the Mets three games in a row in April totaling 3.2 innings allowing 2 earned runs, all of which was given up in a 0.2 inning outing his firs time against the Mets. The Mets have the following numbers against Hand: