The Mets look to avoid being swept this afternoon at Citi Field as they take on the Angels for the nationally televised early game on Peacock. Last night the Angels were able to knock Carlos Carrasco out of the game early and the Mets bats couldn’t get anything consistent going with the bats. The only positive for the Mets was the bullpen tossed 7 1/3 scoreless innings after Carrasco left.
David Peterson looks to give the bullpen some time off today as he makes his 16th start of the season. Over 77 1/3 innings he has a 5.59 ERA, 4.94 FIP, 1.668 WHIP and a 75 ERA+. In his last three starts he has allowed seven runs from 14 hits and 10 walks over only 12 innings of work. His strikeout numbers are up (14 in that stretch) but he’s throwing way too many pitches per inning. His last outing he tossed 4 2/3 which was the deepest he’s gone since returning to the rotation. The Angels have the following career numbers against him:
- Andrew Velazquez 0-4, 2 K
- Randal Grichuk 2-5
- Hunter Renfroe 0-1, 2 BB
- Eduardo Escobar 0-2
- Mike Moustakas 0-2, 2 K
- Brandon Drury 2-2
- Shohei Ohtani 1-1
The Mets bats will try to break out of their funk against Griffin Canning. Canning has pitched 91 2/3 innings over 18 games with a 4.61 ERA, 4.63 FIP, 1.255 WHIP and a 98 ERA+. Over his last four starts he has a 4.58 ERA, 2.93 FIP in 17 2/3 innings, but this is being inflated by one start where he allowed four runs in 3 2/3 innings. Only two Mets have seen him before in a major league game. Daniel Vogelbach is 0-for-2 against him with two strikeouts and Omar Narváez is 2-for-2.
Three Things To Watch For:
- Daniel Vogelbach. Since August 12th, Vogelbach has been hitting more like a DH. He’s gone 10-for-37 at the plate with five of those hits being home runs. He’s slashing .278/.422/.694 over this stretch. From the start of the season to August 11th Vogelbach hit .214/.313/.348. Obviously a much larger sample size. There’s still about a month left in the season and it will be interesting to see what Vogelbach’s splits are, using this August 11th/12th cut-off.
- Brandon Nimmo. When the Mets where winning a whole bunch of games, Brandon Nimmo was on a hot streak. He’s now 0-for-17 over his last four games, including having a two strikeout game yesterday. The Mets offense just doesn’t function without Brandon Nimmo. Let’s hope he starts a new hot streak today.
- The Bullpen. The bullpen put a lot of work in yesterday with only Sam Coonrod and Trevor Gott not pitching. The Mets don’t have another off day until Thursday. Knowing how the Mets have treated the bullpen recently, someone is getting optioned, possibly even before today’s game to give the Mets more fresh arms. It’s just so important that David Peterson can go deep into this game and give the Mets bullpen arms a rest.
Let’s Go Mets!
