MMO Game Thread : Mets vs Cardinals, 8:15 PM

After a four-day break, the New York Mets resume play on Friday against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Noah Syndergaard (4-4, 3.11) opposes right-hander Lance Lynn (6-5, 2.90) in the 8:15 PM series opener.

The Mets have won four games in a row and are 7-2 in their last nine games. New York has won five of its last seven road games and is 15-28 away from Citi Field this year.

Syndergaard now has 72 strikeouts in his first 11 career games. That total is fourth-highest in team history through 11 games behind Dwight Gooden (87), Nolan Ryan (81) and Matt Harvey (80).

Mets Starting Lineup

Curtis Granderson – RF
Wilmer Flores – 2B
Daniel Murphy – 3B
Lucas Duda – 1B
Kevin Plawecki – C
Kirk Nieuwenhuis – LF
Ruben Tejada – SS
Noah Syndergaard – RHP
Juan Lagares – CF

The Mets are 47-42 heading into the second half of the season, two games back in the east and one game back in the wild card. They are coming off of a three game sweep of Arizona and they head into St. Louis to play the incredible 2015 Cardinals who have a winning percentage of .627 right now, and that includes them ending the first half of the season having been swept.

The Mets will start things off with Noah Syndergaard who is 4-4 over 11 games and 66.2 innings with a 3.11 ERA. In his last three starts he has logged 22.0 innings, 3 ER, 1.23 ERA and 24 strikeouts. Noah has never faced the Cardinals or anyone on the Cardinals roster before in a major league game.

The Mets bats will see if they can start the second half of the season like how they started the first half (and not like how they performed for 75% of it) against Lance Lynn who is 6-5 with a 2.90 ERA over 16 starts and 96.1 innings. After a string of 6 starts where he went 3-0 and tossed 37.2 innings with a 1.19 ERA, he allowed 5 ER over 4.0 innings in his last start of the first half. Last year he was 0-2 against the Mets despite posting a 2.92 ERA in 12.1 innings over two games. The Mets have the following numbers against Lynn: