The Mets go for the sweep this afternoon against the White Sox! The Mets have now won three games in a row. A win today would erase their four game slide that happened after their six game winning streak. Currently the Mets are five games below .500 and seven games out of the Wild Card. All of the teams around them have won their last two games. The Marlins are on a six game slide which kept the Mets in the race right after the break. There’s still an opening for the Mets to make move!
José Quintana makes his New York Mets debut this afternoon! The long-time member of the Chicago White Sox will start off his 2023 campaign against his former team. Quintana was signed this off-season to bolster a Mets rotation that lost most of it’s regular starting pitchers to free agency. He had surgery back in March to treat a lesion on his ribs. After the maximum allotted time for rehab starts, and getting his debut pushed back a day while he battled flu-like symptoms, he is ready to go!
José Quintana split time with he Pirates and the Cardinals last season. Over 32 starts (165 2/3 innings), Quintana had a 2.93 ERA, 2.99 FIP, 1.213 WHIP and a 138 ERA+. He lead the league last season in HR/9 at a paltry 0.4. The White Sox have the following career numbers against him:
- Elvis Andrus 4-21, 2 K
- Yasmani Grandal 5-15, 2 HR, 2 BB, 4 K
- TIm Anderson 0-4, K
- Clint Frazier 1-3, 2B
- Yoán Moncada 1-3, 2 K
- Luis Robert Jr. 0-1
The Mets bats will try to finish out the series on a strong note today against Michael Kopech. Kopech has tossed 86 2/3 innings over 17 games with a 4.47 ERA, 5.90 FIP, 1.408 WHIP and a 99 ERA+. He’s coming off of any abysmal start about a week ago where he allowed four runs on a hit a four walks over 2/3rds of an inning against the Braves. His two starts before that weren’t great either and overall he’s allowed nine runs over his last 8 2/3 innings of work. He was on roll briefly before this stretch, where he allowed two runs or less in four of five starts. The only Mets who have seen him in a major league game before are Mark Canha (0-2, K) and Starling Marte (0-2).
Three Things To Watch For:
- Baby Mets continue to dominate the offense. This has been a series for the baby Mets. Brett Baty and Francisco Álvarez went back-to-back on Tuesday night. Álvarez even hit two homers! Last night Baty hit a homer for the second straight day. Álvarez went 2-for-4 at the plate with a run scored. While some of the other Mets are slumping right now, the Baby Mets are carrying the team.
- Can Pete Alonso break out of his slump? Since the All-star break Alonso has gone 1-for-16 at the plate with three walks. This can be extended a bit, since July 7th he has gone 1-for-26 at the plate with five walks. He’s had four hits in July, two of them being homers. During his cold stretch the Mets have won six games in a row, lost four and now won three again. The Mets need their biggest power threat to return to being himself.
- The bullpen should be more rested tonight. After a terrible Tuesday where the bullpen was overused and imploded in the 7th inning, Just Verlander essentially gave the bullpen the night off yesterday. Ottavino pitched the only inning of relief and it was second consecutive scoreless outing. Drew Smith and David Peterson haven’t been used in a minute and presumably will take on a larger role with any pitch count limitations with Quintana today.
Let’s Go Mets!
