Game Preview: Mets @ Phillies

The Mets go for the series victory today in Philadelphia! The Mets won the first game of the doubleheader yesterday but couldn’t get the offense going for the night cap – so they settled for the split. For the past week the Mets have known that the yesterday and today was going to be the rough patch in terms of starting pitching. Carlos Carrasco is out for the next month. Taijuan Walker, who was scheduled to pitch today, needs more time to come back from back spasms. So the Mets relied on Trevor Williams and David Peterson yesterday to fill in the gaps, but that still left today to figure out.

And that’s why we get the major league debut of José Butto! The right handed pitcher, who most recently was listed as the #12 prospect in the Mets system by Mets Minors will get a chance to show his stuff at the major league level today. Across 20 games with Binghamton and two games with Syracuse, Butto has pitched 98 1/3 innings with a 4.39 ERA and a 1.312 WHIP. While his walk rate at 3.4 per nine innings is the highest in his career, so his strikeout rate at 10.2 per nine. He has thrown up to 98 pitches as recently as July 30th – so if his stuff looks good today he can potentially go deep into the game.

The Mets bats will get another look at Kyle Gibson this afternoon. Over 23 games and 127 2/3 innings, Gibson has a 4.30 ERA, 4.27 FIP, 1.167 WHIP and a 95 ERA+. In his last four starts he has allowed nine runs, eight earned, over 26 innings (2.77 ERA, 3.74 FIP). Gibson threw back to back games against the Mets at the end of April and start of May. In the first game he held the Mets to one unearned run over 4 1/3 innings. In the next start he held the Mets to two earned runs over six innings from six hits. The Mets have the following numbers against him: