The Mets and Yankees meet tonight for part one of their annual Subway Series. The Yankees currently sit in third place in the AL East with a 38-29 record, but out 4-6 over their last ten games. The Mets are in fourth place in the NL East at 31-35 and have won only two games of their last 10. The Yankees are without their most exciting bat, Aaron Judge. The Mets are sorely missing the driver of their offense in Pete Alonso.
It’s no secret that for the Mets, the starting pitching has let the team down. In this two game series with their cross town rivals, the Mets will be sending out their two biggest stars – Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. If there was ever a time to make a statement, it’s right now!
Over ten starts (53 1/3 innings) Max Scherzer has a 3.71 ERA, 3.89 FIP, 1.181 WHIP and a 111 ERA+. Scherzer is coming off of a start where he started off great and then wheels just fell off. By the time he left in the sixth inning, he allowed five runs despite striking out a season high 10 batters. In his four starts before this he had allowed only four runs, three earned, over 25 innings (1.08 ERA). Scherzer had two very different starts against the Yankees last season. At Citi Field he held them to no runs over seven innings. In the Bronx he allowed four runs over 6 2/3. The Yankees have the following career numbers against him:
- Anthony Rizzo 6-23, 2B, HR, BB, 3 K
- Josh Donaldson 3-20, 2B, 3B, 4 BB, 4 K
- Giancarlo Stanton 6-24, 3 HR, 12 K
- DJ LeMahieu 5-14, BB, 3 K
- Harrison Bader 2-12, 2B, 4 K
- Gleyber Torres 0-8, BB, 3 K
- Isiah Kiner-Falefa 3-6, 2 2B, K
Luis Severino returned to the Yankees from the injured list at the end of May and honestly his situation feels so Mets like it’s confusing he’s not on our roster. This season, over four starts and 20 1/3 innings, he has a 5.75 ERA, 7.15 FIP, 1.328 WHIP and a 73 ERA+. He has a diminished velocity that he needs to work around and is giving up homers at an astonishingly high rate of 3.1 HR/9. Most of his numbers are skewed in his last two starts. In his first two he allowed only three runs, two earned, over 11 1/3 innings, scattering five hits. Since then he has allowed 11 runs over nine innings from 15 hits and six homers. The Mets have the following career numbers against him:
- Francisco Lindor 5-14, 2B, HR, BB, 3 K
- Brandon Nimmo 3-5, 2B, 2 BB, K
- Mark Canha 1-6, HR
- Tommy Pham 1-4, 2B
- Omar Narváez 0-3
- Daniel Vogelbach 0-3, K
- Jeff McNeil 1-2
- Eduardo Escobar 0-1
Three Things To Watch For:
- Jeff McNeil hit a homer! The Mets offense was not existent on Sunday, but Jeff McNeil did hit his third homer of the season. He’s been struggling to find power at the plate but has come around a bit over his last five games where he has gone 5-for-21 with a double and homer slashing .238/.304/.429. On the season he is slugging .354 so this is a slight improvement. The Mets would love for this to be start of something.
- Yankees bats are also struggling. It’s not just the Mets bats that are underperforming. Anthony Rizzo is 0-for-19 in his last five games with two walks (but only two strikeouts). Josh Donaldson is 2-for-22 over his last seven games, but his two hits were both homers. Stanton is 1-for-14 in his last five games.
- The Oakland Athletics Reverse Boycott. If you didn’t know, the Athletics are trying to move to Las Vegas. The whole situation is pretty terrible. The very short version is the ownership group has torn down the Athletics roster over the last couple of years while raising prices and not improving the stadium. Fans have done what they should do in that situation and stopped attending games. The ownership group then used the drop in attendance, that they caused, as evidence for why they should move. I’m glossing over a lot of details here. Anyway today is their reverse boycott where they are going to fill the stadium and they are asking for solidarity in the baseball world. You may see people at the game today, or just around New York City supporting their cause today.
Let’s Go Mets!
