Game Preview: Mets @ Cubs

Last night was rough for the Mets and now they need to win today to avoid the sweep.

I turned off the game after the Mets went up 2-0 last night. Relieved that I saw Francisco Lindor hit his first homer of the year (he went on to have an excellent game with 3 hits) and that J.D. Davis was bouncing back from his night yesterday with two hits.

The game completely unraveled from there, with the final score of 16-4. Mostly due to the Mets making defensive miscues again, compounded with the bullpen falling apart. Not helping – again the Mets were playing in the cold, and the Mets were squeezed early on umpire calls that compounded things throughout the night. The vast majority of the blame falls on the play on the field.

It’s way too early in the season for a do or die game, and today certainly is not that. But it would be great to go into a series against the Nationals this weekend two games above .500 rather than being exactly at .500.

So this is turning into a higher pressure game for Joey Lucchesi. Overall this year he has allowed 3 runs over 5.0 innings from 5 hits and 6 strikeouts. His first outing of the year came in relief with 2.0 innings of no run baseball. His last outing came 10 days later in Colorado and he struggled. In his one start against the Cubs in 2019 he allowed 10 hits and 6 runs over 4.1 innings. The Cubs have the following numbers against Joey:

Javier Baez 5-6, 2 2B, 2 HR
Matt Duffy 1-1, BB
David Bote 4-5, 2 2B, K
Anthony Rizzo 2-3, 2B
Wilson Contreras 2-3, K
Kris Bryant 1-2, BB, K
Joc Pederson 0-1
Ian Happ 0-2, 2 K

The Mets bats will look to find some consistency tonight against Trevor Williams. In three starts and 14.1 innings he has allowed 8 runs from 16 hits and 7 walks while striking out 13. The numbers are distorting his season a bit. His first and third start were fine, allowing no more than 2 runs, it is his second start, where he allowed 5 runs over 3.0 innings from 10 hits where things went off the rails. Williams made back to back starts against the Mets in 2019 where he allowed 6 runs, 5 earned over 13.0 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against him: