The Mets and Nationals start a two game series tonight, but without as much draft implications as you might think. Both teams are at the bottom of the NL East and both teams have complicated draft situations for different reasons. If the Mets don’t finish in the bottom six of the league, their draft pick us unprotected. Due to luxury tax rules, the Mets first pick would then fall 10 places back. Due to Washington DC market size, the Nationals cannot get lottery picks in back-to-back seasons. The earliest they can pick is 10th. Anyway, none of this matters anymore because the Mets have a winning record in the Ronny Mauricio era.
José Quintana makes his 9th start of the year for the Mets tonight. Over 47 innings he has a 3.26 ERA, 3.32 FIP, 1.340 WHIP and a 128 ERA+. He’s coming off of throwing six shutout innings against the Rangers where he allowed three hits, walked three batters and struck out five. This was Quintana’s sixth quality start this season. The Nationals have the following career numbers against Quintana:
- Lane Thomas 2-8, K
- Riley Adams 1-4, K
- CJ Abrams 0-2
- Michael Chavis 0-3, 2 K, BB
- Keibert Ruiz 0-2
- Ildemaro Vargas 1-3, K
- Dominic Smith 0-3, 2 K
- Joey Meneses 1-2, 2B
The Mets bats draw Patrick Corbin who has pitched 154 1/3 innings over 27 starts this season. He has a 4.90 ERA, 5.11 FIP, 1.497 WHIP and an 87 ERA+. He’s also leading the league in hits allowed at 183. It is the third time in the last four seasons he has lead the league in hits allowed. On the other hand he is not leading the league in earned runs (2021 and 2022) and home runs (2021). Over the first four starts in August Corbin looked like a different pitcher with a 2.70 ERA (6.56 FIP) allowing only eight runs, seven earned, from 16 hits and 11 walks over 23 1/3 innings. Things caught up to him in his last start where he allowed six runs from 10 hits. Corbin had a strong start against the Mets in mid-May where he allowed two runs from eight hits over six innings. In his last start against the Mets at the end of July he allowed four runs over 5 2/3. The Mets have the following career numbers against him:
- Pete Alonso 14-43, 2 2B, 5 HR, 12 K, 8 BB
- Brandon Nimmo 8-34, 11 K, 2 BB
- Jeff McNeil 10-35, 2B, 4 K, 2 BB
- Francisco Lindor 10-35, 2 2B, HR, 8 K
- Tim Locastro 1-9, 4 K
- Francisco Álvarez 0-3, BB
- Daniel Vogelbach 0-2, BB
- Mark Vientos 1-2, 2B
Three Things To Watch For:
- Pete Alonso. Pete went 11 games without hitting a homer before hitting two on Sunday (3-for-4 at the plate). This brought him to 41 on the season. During his homerless drought, the chances of him reaching the 50 home run mark started to diminish. His two jack day puts him right back on course and tonight he gets to face a pitcher that he already has five homers against.
- Ronny Mauricio. Ronny had quite a homestand in his major league debut. He had at least one hit in every game, and had multiple hits twice leading to a 5-for-11 line to start the season. He’s already stolen two bases and hit a double too. It’s the Ronny show for the rest of the season!
- Jeff McHits. Since August 2nd Jeff has been hitting .328/.361/.488 racking up a total of 41 hits including six doubles, a triple and four homers. He has raised his season numbers from .251/.327/.327 to .270/.335/.367 over this stretch. That’s a nearly 50 point gain on his OPS. This is the Jeff McNeil we were missing for most of the season, and it’s good to see him again.
Let’s Go Mets!
