Game Preview: Mets @ Marlins

There are many teams playing 1 PM games today. Traditionally, today is getaway day and teams playing tomorrow in a different city play at 1 PM today to have enough time to travel, there are also a large group of teams (Mets included) who have their home openers tomorrow, so they’ll be playing during the day on Thursday.

The Mets are not one of the teams playing at 1, they are playing one hour earlier at 6. It’s going to be a tight turn around tonight to get ready for the home opener in New York, but it’s ok, they’ll figure it out. The team’s bullpen has also tossed a ton of pitches over the last couple of days, so Friday’s off-day is much needed. Just gotta get to Friday.

Before the Mets race back up north, they have a chance to sweep the Marlins! Last night’s win put the Mets at 4-2 on the season, guaranteeing that they’ll at least come home to New York with a winning record. The Mets scored 5 runs in the first inning and went pretty quite after that. There were few moments were the bullpen looked like it was going to fall apart last night (the team as a whole game up 16 hits) and then there was the scare with Brandon Nimmo getting hit by the pitch.

Jacob deGrom looks to soothe everything over tonight. In his first start of the season he tossed 6.0 innings allowing 5 hits and a walk with no runs and 10 strikeouts. You already know the drill about last year but it’s fun to say anyway. In 217.0 innings last year he had a 1.70 ERA (league leading), 1.99 FIP (league leading), 0.912 WHIP and 216 ERA+ (league leading). One of the teams he seemed mortal against last year was the Marlins, as he posted a 3.12 ERA over 4 games and 26.0 innings from 9 runs over 20 hits while striking out 31. The Marlins have the following numbers against Jacob:

Starlin Castro 8-23, 2 BB, 3 K
Miguel Rojas 4-20, 3 BB, 2 K
Martin Prado 3-13, 2B, BB, 5 K
Brian Anderson 4-10, HR, BB, K
Lewis Brinson 3-12, 2B, 4 K
Neil Walker 2-9, BB, 2 K

The Mets will get their first look of 2019 at Trevor Richards who is making his second start of 2019. Last year he went 4-9 over 25 games and 126.1 innings posting a 4.42 ERA, 4.05 FIP, 1.385 WHIP and 82 ERA+ in his first season of major league ball. In his first start of this season against the Rockies he allowed 1 run from 4 hits and 2 walks over 6.0 innings while striking out 4. He made two starts against the Mets last year allowing 6 runs, 4 earned from 13 hits and 3 walks in 11.2 innings while striking out 10. The Mets have the following numbers against Richard: