The Mets open up a four game set against the Nationals today on the road as the pit Pedro against Lannan. The Mets are back to a one game lead in the division, and the road to protecting it restarts again tonight. Hopefully this time around against the Nationals not only will the Mets hit well, but hopefully they will also pitch well.
I said this last week, Lannan is having a good season and the Mets did a good job of roughing his numbers up a bit. On the season he is 8-13 over 163.0 innings pitched and has an ERA of 4.09. In his last five games he is 2-2 in 25.1 innings ptiched and has an ERA of 7.82. A lot of that is from his last game against the Mets where he allowed 5 runs over 3 innings. Against the Mets overall this year he is 0-1 in three games and 15 innings pitched with an ERA of 6.00 with 2 walks and 15 strikeouts. We need to keep the strikeouts down tonight and hopefully the Mets will be able to produce the same results as last week. The Mets bats will hope to build off of these numbers:
Reyes 5-12, 2B
Wright 4-12, 2 2B
Church 4-9, 2 2B, 2 HR
Beltran 2-8, 2B
Delgado 3-7, HR
Church has some good looking numbers against Lannan. The key is to ralley build. The Mets can't wait for the long ball they need to buidl rallies and start knocking in those runs on doubles and singles. Do enough of that and then the game will be in control for the Mets and hopefully get Pedro's 6th win of the season.
Pedro on the year is starting to approach the 100 innings pitched mark. He is at 91.0 so he will hopefully reach that mark within his next two games. On the seaosn he is 5-4 with an ERA of 5.44. He has struggled of late going 2-1 over 29 innings pitched during his last 5 games and has allowed 6 walks vs 23 K's. His ERA during that stretch is 5.59. He has not faced the Nastionals this year but here are their numebrs against Pedro in the past:
Guzman 7-21, 3 2B
Orr 2-14, 5 K
Belliard 1-4
Zimmerman 0-6, 3K
Key for the game is the same as always which is to keep the Nationals off the bases. If they are not on, they cannot score. Another thing to watch out for with this club is that since the September callups not only have they gotten better, but they have gotten faster. It is a fast team that can cover a lot of distance on the field and can round the bases hard. It hasn't resulted in SB's yet, but that could be an expolosion for next year. Make them play our game, and we go home the victor.
Lets Go Mets!
