The Mets return home after a week away on the West Coast. They ended up splitting the road trip and open up a homestand tonight with a winning record as they welcome the Cardinals, a team they played approximately 34 times in spring training, to Citi Field.
The big news of the night is the arrival of J.D. Martinez. Martinez signed with the Mets at the end of spring training and needed time to ramp up (and work through a back injury). Last season Martinez hit .271/.321/.572 with a 134 OPS+ over 113 games. He’s been an All-Star five of the last six seasons. Combined with Marte’s resurgence, Martinez makes the first five hitters of the Mets lineup formidable.
Jose Buttó makes his fourth start of the season tonight. Over his first three games he’s pitched 16 1/3 innings with a 1.65 ERA, 2.59 FIP, 1.041 WHIP and a 241 ERA+. Buttó is coming off of his worst start of the season in Los Angeles where he allowed three runs from three hits and a whopping five walks over 4 1/3 innings. It was a departure from his previous start where he held the Royals to two hits and a walk and nothing else over six innings. Despite the walk troubles, Buttó kept his strikeout numbers up with six his last time out, bringing his season total to 21. No one on the Cardinals roster has faced Buttó in a major league game.
The Mets bats will look to keep the vibes from Wednesday going as they take on Miles Mikolas. Mikolas has made five starts pitching 26 1/3 innings with a 6.49 ERA, 5.00 FIP, 1.519 WHIP and a 64 ERA+. It is the third time in the last four seasons where his ERA+ has been below 100. He’s coming off a workhorse type season where he made a league leading 35 starts totaling 201 1/3 innings where he allowed a league leading 226 hits and 107 earned runs.
Looking more recently, Mikolas has allowed ten runs in his last two starts, five each in both starts, from 13 hits and three home runs. In his two starts against the Mets last year he allowed 13 runs over 10 2/3 innings from 15 hits. The Mets have the following career numbers against him:
- Pete Alonso 2-12, BB, 2 K
- Brett Baty 1-3, 2B
- Francisco Lindor 4-11, 2B, K
- Starling Marte 7-38, 2B, 2 BB, 6 K
- Jeff McNeil 8-14, 3 2B, BB, K
- Omar Narváez 4-17, 2 2B, 3B, BB, 3 K
- Tomás Nido 0-3, 3 K
- Brandon Nimmo 0-13, 3 BB, 3 K
- DJ Stewart 1-2, HR, K
- Tyrone Taylor 3-10, 2B, HR, 3 BB
- Joey Wendle 1-7, K
- J.D. Martinez 1-3, HR
Three Things To Watch For:
- The new Mets lineup! The Mets bats are the main story tonight. A top of the lineup of Nimmo-Marte-Lindor-Alonso-Martinez is as good as the Mets have been in a while. There are other questions the Mets will need to figure out, like how to do they cycle in Tyrone Taylor enough in the lineup to get a meaningful amount of at bats. This is a good problem to have!
- Lindor is coming in hot! Lindor returns home after a 4-for-5 afternoon on Wednesday where he smacked two homeruns with 4 RBI’s. Over his last six games Lindor has gone 9-for-24 at the plate with a double and three home runs.
- Length from a starting pitcher. The Mets starting rotation has been struggling going into deep into games so far this season. On Wednesday Manaea kept the Giants off the scoreboard over 4 2/3 innings, but had to leave the game before he even qualified for a win due to his pitch count. The last time that Buttó pitched he walked five batters. He also has pitched six innings twice this season.
Let’s Go Mets!
