The Mets go for their 10th win a row and a third consecutive series sweep this afternoon at Citi Field. On Saturday Jose Quintana pitched brilliantly earning his 100th career win while all of the teams the Mets are competing with lost. The Mets enter play today as the sole holders of the third wild card, 0.5 games back of the second wild card and 2.0 games back of the top spot.
Luis Severino has pitched 159 1/3 innings over 27 games this season with a 3.84 ERA, 4.25 FIP, 1.255 WHIP and a 102 ERA+. He’s coming off of a strong start against the Red Sox where he held them to one run over seven innings. In his last four starts has allowed six runs over 25 2/3 innings (2.10 ERA, 3.14 FIP) and four of those six runs came in one start. He’s also struck out 27 batters over that stretch. Severino faced the Reds at the start of the season, holding the Reds to two runs, one earned over five innings. The Reds have the following career numbers against Severino:
- Will Benson 1-5, 2 K
- Elly De La Cruz 0-2, K
- Santiago Espinal 1-6, 2B, 3 K
- Jake Fraley 0-4, K
- Jonathan India 0-4, 3 BB, K
- Luke Maile 3-10, BB, 2 K
- Amed Rosario 2-14, HR, 5 K
- Spencer Steer 2-4, 2B
- Tyler Stephenson 0-1, 2 BB, K
The Mets bats will close out the series against the Reds with the rookie Julian Aguiar. Aguiar has made four starts over his major league career totaling 16 2/3 innings with a 6.48 ERA, 7.26 FIP, 1.500 WHIP and a 68 ERA+. His stats right now are skewed by a start against the Athletics where they scored six times off 10 hits over four innings. He allowed exactly two runs each in his other three starts that ranged from 2 2/3 innings to six innings. No one on the Mets have faced Aguiar in a major league game.
Three Things To Watch For:
- Mets bullpen is probably without Díaz today. Edwin Díaz has been on a roll for the Mets during their current win streak and has pitched in three of the last four Mets games, tossing 30 pitches in back-to-back games. Most likely he will not be available today for the Mets, but the rest of the bullpen is pretty rested. Garrett has thrown the most pitches in the last three calendar days at only 16 pitches. Hopefully the Mets bats give the Mets enough breathing room where they don’t even need to think about a high leverage situation.
- José Iglesias becomes even more important. Before Saturday’s game the Mets announced that Jeff McNeil would be out for the rest of the season due to a fractured wrist. Iglesias has gone 3-for-6 in his last two games with a double, run scored and an RBI.
- The Mets hit a lot of doubles. The Mets had two doubles on Saturday (Winker, Martinez). As a team they have 259 doubles in 2024, which ties them with the Dodgers for third in the majors, and first in the National League. When combined with the Mets homer numbers (182, fourth in the majors, second in the national league), the Mets offense features quite a bit of pop.
Let’s Go Mets!
