Tonight Zack Wheeler will take the mound against Ivan Nova for the Pirates. Wheeler is 2-6 over 14 games and 81.2 innings with a 4.85 ERA, 3.85 FIP, 1.371 WHIP and a 78 ERA+. His last start was more or less average of his season numbers where he allowed 4 runs over 7.0 innings. You could look and be worried about Wheeler, after a stretch of taking many steps forward, his lines in two of last three games don’t look good, 10 runs over 12.2 innings, but he really did perform better than his lines. Callaway deserves criticism about some decisions this year, but he has also started to move Wheeler in the right direction. Against Pittsburgh last year he allowed 3 runs over 6.0 innings from 7 hits and 2 runs. The Pirates have the following numbers against Zack:
- Bell 1-3
- Cervelli 2-3
- Frazier 0-3
- Freese 0-2
- Harrison 1-3, 2B
- Polanco 1-3
Ivan Nova is 4-5 over 14 game sand 81.1 innings with a 3.98 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 1.230 WHIP and a 99 ERA+. He is coming off his best game of the season where he held the Diamondbacks scoreless over 8.0 innings which is the second time in 2018 he has produced a line like that. Overall in June he has pitched 19.2 innings over 3 games with a 0.92 ERA. In comparison, in May, he pitched 23.2 innings over 5 games with a 7.61 ERA. Ivan Nova, the long time Yankee, hasn’t faced the Mets in a while which means most of the home grown New York Mets have never seen him. But the Mets have a good amount of players from trades and bargain bin signings over the last couple of years that have seen him:
- Bautista 9-29, 3 2B, HR, 8 BB
- Reyes 3-10, BB
- Cabrera 2-8
- Bruce 0-6, 3 K
- Cespedes 4-5, 2B, BB
- Frazier 1-5, HR
- Mesoraco 1-2, 2B
Let’s Go Mets!
