The Mets look to repeat their opener tonight as they take on the Padres for game two of the season. On Monday, the Mets continued their Opening Day success mashing the Padres by the score of 11-2 in a game that featured great pitching by Niese (and a great debut from Rice) and a lot of timely hitting up and down the lineup. The new guys contributed a lot with hits and RBI’s by Byrd and Buck, topped off with a grand slam by Colin Cowgill. Today Matt Harvey will make his season debut as he squares up against Clayton Richard.
Matt Harvey had a tremendous 2012 season going 3-5 over 10 starts while pitching 59.1 innings with a 2.73 ERA. Even more impressive, in that near 60 inning stretch, he walked only 26 batters while striking out 70. That’s a K/9 of 10.6! He made only a handful of negative starts last year, and one was against the Padres where he lasted 5 innings allowing 5 ER over 8 hits while walking 2 and striking out 5. The Padres have the following numbers against him:
Alonso 2-3, 2B, HR
Amarista 0-3
Cabrera 1-3
Quentin 1-3, 2B
Venable 1-3, 3B
Maybin 1-2, 2B
The Mets batters look to continue their hot start against Clayton Richard. Richard 14-14 over 33 starts and 218.2 innings last season with a 3.99 ERA. His ERA is surprisingly low when you factor in he led all pitchers in hits allowed (228) and homers (31) last year (but also pitched a ton of innings). He was 1-1 against the Mets last year as he totaled 13.0 innings over 2 games allowing 5 ER. The Mets posted the following numbers against Clayton:
Wright 3-12, 2B
Davis 1-9
Byrd 2-6
Tejada 2-6
Turner 2-4
Buck 1-3, 2B
Cowgill 1-3
Duda 0-3
Murphy 1-3, 2B
Let’s Go Mets!
