The New York Mets (28-31) begin a near two-week stay in the confines of the five boroughs as they start a three-game set with the San Francisco Giants (24-34) on Tuesday.
The Mets will not leave the New York area until June 17 when the play the Atlanta Braves at SunTrust Park. The Mets do play two games at Yankee Stadium on June 10th and 11th, but other than that brief excursion to the Bronx, the Mets will entertain three visitors at Citi Field playing ten games there before they hit the road.
The Mets continue their foray against the National League West as they play the last-place team in that division in the Giants. This will be the third straight series the Mets have faced an NL West foe. That will turn into four in a row Friday when they open a series against the Colorado Rockies. The Mets were 4-3 against the Giants last year, with Noah Syndergaard earning two of the four wins.
The Giants have struggled for the most part this season. They find themselves in fifth place in the NL West, 16 games behind the first place Los Angeles Dodgers. They are 3-8 in their last 11 games and the three wins were against two of the worst teams in baseball, the Baltimore Orioles (2 wins) and the Miami Marlins. Interestingly, San Francisco has fared better on the road than at home, compiling a near .500 record (14-16) away from Oracle Park.
The Giants’ woes start with their anemic offense. They rank 14th in the NL in team offense having scored only 224 runs in 58 games, But they are dead last in the NL in run differential with a -76 which is 2 runs worse than the Miami Marlin’s figure. Their team batting average is .222 which is the lowest in the National League.
Giant first baseman Brandon Belt leads the team in BA (.243), home runs (8) and OBP (.357). Center-fielder Kevin Pillar leads the team in RBIs with 25, one more than Belt’s 24. Second-year Giant Steven Duggar leads the team in hits with 51. Six-time All-Star and former MVP Buster Posey only has 18 RBIs and 3 HRs in 46 games played.
As far as team pitching, the Giants rank 12th with a team ERA of 4.65. They are one of only three teams in the NL to allow 300 runs so far in 2019 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies being the other two. Three Giants pitchers have the most wins on the team with 3 each. They are Madison Bumgarner, Jeff Samardzija, and Dereck Rodriguez. Samardzija leads the Giants staff with a 3.61 ERA while Bumgarner leads in strikeouts with 74.
Four-time All-Star Bumgarner is having at best a mediocre year with a 3-5 record, 74 hits allowed in 74 IP and a 4.01 ERA. He has certainly been the victim of lack of run support in several of his outings. His 9.0 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 are both excellent showing that on a given night, Madison Bumgarner is a still a tough customer. He will face the Mets in the opener of the series on Tuesday.
The Giants rank 12th in the NL in team defense. They have committed 38 errors in 58 games and have a .980 fielding percentage, which incidentally is the exact same percentage as the Mets.
San Francisco is managed by Bruce Bochy. The 64 year-old skipper has won three championships as Giant manager (2010, 2012, 2014) and is the Giants all-time leader in managerial wins in the San Francisco era. He is the only manager in MLB history to win 900+ games with two different franchises with the Padres being the other team. Bochy, a former Mets catcher, surprised the baseball world when on February 18, 2019, he announced he will retire at the conclusion of the 2019 season.
The Mets are coming off a 2-5 road trip against the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although there were other factors in the poor trip, the bullpen is front and center as to the cause. On the trip the pen had an ERA of over 12 and blew a five-run lead against the Dodgers and a four run lead against the Diamondbacks. The Mets limp home having lost 17 of its last 21 road contests.
Fortunately, the Mets have fared better at Citi Field. They are 15-9 at home and have played the fewest home games of any team in the NL. Ten of their next 12 games will be in Queens, where they were 6-1 in their last home stand against the Washington Nationals and the Detroit Tigers.
The Mets and Giants will meet again this year on July 18-21 in a four-game set at Oracle Park in San Francisco.
Tuesday, June 4: RHP Noah Syndergaard vs LHP Madison Bumgarner 7:10 PM
2019 Stats: Syndergaard 3-4 record, 4.90 ERA (3.63 FIP), 1.274 WHIP, 9.2 K/9, 2.0 BB/9; Bumgarner 3-5 record, 4.01 ERA (3.59 FIP), 1.189 WHIP, 9.0 K/9, 1.7 BB/9.
A pitching rematch of the 2016 Wild-Card game, both of these hurlers have had their ups and downs this season. Bumgarner has lost his last two starts, to the Marlins and the Braves. In both games, he gave up two runs on six hits, but was the victim of poor run support. He will be making his 13th start of the year for the Giants. San Francisco has gone 5-7 in his previous 12 outings.
Bumgarner, 29, is probably very happy to see the New York Mets because he has never lost to them. He is 6-0 lifetime against New York in seven career starts with a 1.69 ERA. Only Todd Frazier has had some success against the Giants ace, stroking six hits (2 of which were homers) against him.
Noah Syngergaard may be the most perplexing of Mets starters. He shows signs of brilliance at times and at times he’s very hittable as his near 5.00 ERA suggests. Syndergaard will be making his 13th start of the season with the Mets earning a 6-6 record in his starts thus far. The team has lost its last three with Noah on the mound although Syndergaard took the loss in only one of those games.
Noah seems to have lost confidence in his signature pitch, the slider. He only threw it 11 times in a 116 pitch effort last-out against the Dodgers. In that Dodger game, Syndergaard allowed three runs on seven hits, with five strikeouts and two walks.
Syndergaard has a 3-2 record and 2.86 ERA lifetime against the Giants. He hasn’t lost to the Giants since May 1, 2016. Buster Posey and Evan Longoria each have 3 hits against Syndergaard in their careers.
Wednesday, June 5: LHP Jason Vargas vs RHP Tyler Beede 7:10 PM
2019 Stats: Vargas 1-3 record, 4.46 ERA (4.91 FIP), 1.514 WHIP, 7.2 K/9, 4.5 BB/9; Beede 0-1 record, 7.82 ERA (5.60 FIP), 2.368 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 7.8 BB/9
Tyler Beede is pitching in his sophomore year for the Giants and will be making his 5th lifetime start on Wednesday. He hurled his best start to-date last out against the Marlins giving up only one run on five hits. He received a no-decision in the game but lowered his ERA from 13.50 to 7.82. The 26 year-old has appeared in four games with the Giants with San Francisco managing a 2-2 record in those starts.
Beede will be making his first career start against the Mets on Wednesday.
Veteran southpaw Jason Vargas takes the hill for the Mets in game two in the series. Vargas had his best start of the season Thursday against the first place Dodgers yielding only one run and six hits in seven IP. It was the longest outing of the year for Vargas.
The Dodger outing was the second straight appearance where Vargas has allowed only one run. He allowed only a single run to the Detroit Tigers on May 25. He has been so effective recently that his ERA has come down from 5.92 at the beginning of May to 4.46 as of June 5.
Vargas, 36, has started against the Giants five times in his career, owning a 2-1 mark with a 2.12 ERA.
Buster Posey is four for nine in his career against Vargas while Evan Longoria is three for eleven. Kevin Pillar is the only active Giant to have homered off of Vargas.
In a statistical oddity, this is Vargas’ 14th year in the major leagues. His record is 93-93.
Thursday, June 6: RHP Zack Wheeler vs RHP Shaun Anderson 12:10 PM
2019 Stats: 5-3 record, 4.68 ERA (3.34 FIP), 1.286 WHIP, 10.2 K/9, 2.8 BB/9; Anderson 1-1 record, 4.09 ERA (3.83 FIP), 1.318 WHIP, 5.3 K/9, 2.0 BB/9
24 year-old rookie Shaun Anderson will take the mound in the final game of the series for the Giants. He will be making his fifth lifetime start and first against the Mets. Anderson picked up his first major league win on Saturday in an 8-2 Giant win over the Orioles. In that game, he pitched seven strong innings allowing only two runs and five hits. The Giants are 3-1 in games Anderson has started.
Shaun Anderson will renew acquaintances will his college teammate Pete Alonso. They both went to the University of Florida.
Zack Wheeler will be making his seventh lifetime start against San Francisco. He is 2-2 against the Giants with a 3.03 ERA.
Wheeler will be making his 13th start of the season with the Mets owning a 6-6 record in his outings. His last appearance was on Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks. He earned his fifth victory of the year as the Mets won the game, 5-4. Zack allowed four runs on seven hits, striking out nine without issuing a walk.
He has been a boon to a sometimes beleaguered Mets bullpen as he has been able to complete at least seven inning in seven of his last 10 starts. In fact, he hasn’t had an outing of less than six innings since April 7. A starting pitcher who can go long is just what the doctor ordered considering the current state of the Mets bullpen.
Brandon Belt is three for eight lifetime against Wheeler. Posey is two for five against Zack including a home run.
Prediction: Another case of the Mets playing an inferior team who is struggling. Two recent previews I have done mirrored this situation. One was the Miami series, where the Mets were swept, and the other, the Detroit series where the Mets worked hard to win two out of three. So to predict a sweep here for the Mets is probably foolhardy based on their recent play especially out of the bullpen. True, the Mets play better at Citi Field than on the road, but that is countered by the fact that the Giants play better on the road than at home.
Two of the three pitchers going for San Francisco are relative unknowns, but the Mets have at times struggled against pitchers they face for the first time. And then there is the little factoid that Bumgarner has never lost to the Mets.
Let’s cross our fingers and go with the Mets taking two out of three from the Giants as they start their home stand on a positive note.
