Wednesday, May 2, 2018• 7:10 p.m.
Citi Field • Flushing, N.Y.
LHP Sean Newcomb (1-1, 4.23) vs. RHP Jacob deGrom (3-0, 2.06)
SNY• WOR 710 AM • 104.3 WAXQ-FM HD 2 • ESPN 1050
The Mets lost a tough game last night 3-2 as they fell to 1-3 on the season against the Braves. The Braves pushed Sean Newcomb back in the rotation a day and called up a kid making his major league debut (Matt Soroka) against the Mets (and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, except you can’t because you’re reading this and this isn’t a conversation yet, see the game thread below for that) and baffled the Mets line up. The hero of the night for the Mets would be Cespedes who got three hits, including a homer.
Mets Lineup
- Asdrubal Cabrera 2B
- Wilmer Flores 1B
- Yoenis Cespedes LF
- Todd Frazier 3B
- Jay Bruce RF
- Juan Lagares CF
- Amed Rosario SS
- Jose Lobaton C
- Jacob deGrom P
Atlanta Braves
- Ozzie Albies 2B
- Ronald Acuna Jr. LF
- Freddie Freeman 1B
- Nick Markakis RF
- Tyler Flowers C
- Dansby Swanson SS
- Ryan Flaherty 3B
- Sean Newcomb P
- Ender Inciarte CF
The Mets look to Jacob deGrom to make it all better. He’s 3-0 on the season over six starts and 39.1 innings with a 2.06 ERA, 2.33 FIP, 1.042 WHIP and 188 ERA+. In his last two starts, he has thrown 14.1 innings of scoreless baseball allowing nine hits and five walks while striking out 18. One of those starts was against the Braves where he held them to four hits over seven innings while striking them out ten times. The Braves have the following numbers against deGrom:
- Freeman 8-31, 2 2B, 2 HR, 2 BB, 9 K
- Markakis 7-25, HR, BB
- Inciarte 5-21, 2B, 2 BB, 5 K
- Flowers 3-7
- Swanson 2-6, 3 BB, 3 K
- Albies 0-5, BB
- Suzuki 0-5
It was misleading earlier to say that Sean Newcomb was pushed back a day and that’s why Soroka got the start yesterday. The Braves wanted to give Teheran an extra day of rest for his back and the best solution for the Braves right now was to have Soroka pitch, and his time to do so was yesterday, so Sean Newcomb got pushed back as well (not that he would complain about an extra day of rest).
In five starts this season Sean has pitched 27.2 innings with a 4.23 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 1.482 WHIP and 91 ERA+. He is coming off his second worst start of the season where he allowed four ER over six innings vs the Reds from five hits and three walks. In his one start against the Mets this year he allowed three runs, two earned over six innings while walking three and striking out five. The Mets have the following numbers against Sean:
- Cabrera 5-12, 2B
- Reyes 1-9, 3 K
- Lagares 0-7, BB, 3 K
- Cespedes 0-5, BB, 2 K
- Conforto 0-3, 2 BB
- Flores 4-6
- Nimmo 0-6
- Bruce 1-3, 2B
- Frazier 0-2
- Nido 1-2
- Rosario 2-2, 2 2B
Jacob deGrom is fifth in the NL and 10th in the majors with a 2.06 ERA. DeGrom’s 2.06 ERA is the lowest of his career after the first six starts of a season. He is fifth in the NL holding opponents to a .277 slugging percentage. He has also only allowed one extra-base hit in 78 at-bats vs. right-handers.
Cespedes collected his third outfield assist this year last night, tied for the third-most in the NL. He leads the majors with 66 outfield assists since his arrival to the majors in 2012.
Juan Lagares is batting .342 (13-38), which is the fourth-highest mark in the National League (min. 35 at-bats). Lagares is batting .294 (5-17) vs. left-handers this year.
Jay Bruce has hit in eight straight games going, 12-34 (.353) with one double, one triple, one home run and five RBI during that stretch.
Yoenis Cespedes has six hits in his last seven at-bats including two home runs, a double and three singles.
The Mets fell to 5-3 in one-run decisions with last night’s 3-2 loss. New York is 10-4 in games decided by two or fewer runs.
Let’s Go Mets!
