The New York Mets continue their weekend series against the division-leading Washington Nationals after taking the first game in dramatic fashion with a walk off homerun in the bottom of the 12th.
Jacob deGrom (10-6, 2.05) gets the start for the Mets tonight and opposes right-hander Joe Ross (2-3, 3.03) for the Nats in a 7:10 PM matchup.
Jacob deGrom is 10-5 with a 1.59 ERA in 20 career starts at Citi Field. That is the lowest home ERA in the majors over the last two seasons. DeGrom has never allowed more than three earned runs in a start at Citi Field.
Welcome to New York, Yoenis Cespedes!
Yoenis Cespedes will wear #52 and will become the 11th Cuban-born player to play for the Mets. Cespedes, 29, was hitting .293 with 18 home runs and 61 RBI in 102 games with the Tigers and has 48 extra-base hits, which rank third among outfielders in the majors.
Cespedes is first in defensive runs saved for leftfielders this season with 11. Cespedes has also registered nine outfield assists this season. Since his debut in 2012, Cespedes has 44 outfield assists, which is second in the AL in that stretch behind Kansas City’s Alex Gordon, who has 45.
Mets Starting Lineup
- Curtis Granderson – CF
- Daniel Murphy – 3B
- Yoenis Cespedes – LF
- Lucas Duda – 1B
- Wilmer Flores – 2B
- Kelly Johnson – RF
- Travis d’Arnaud – C
- Jacob deGrom – RHP
- Ruben Tejada – SS
In game two of the crucial weekend series, the Mets will be sending out Jacob deGrom, who is coming off an amazing start. On the season he is 10-6 with a 2.05 ERA over 19 starts and 127.1 innings with 128 strikeouts.
In his last 12 starts deGrom has tossed 85.2 innings with a 1.37 ERA and 91 strikeouts. As mentioned earlier, his last start was fantastic tossing 7.2 scoreless innings against the league leading ERA pitcher, Zach Greinke.
He has faced the Nationals three times this year. First time he allowed 2 ER over 6.0 innings, then he allowed 5 ER over 5.1 innings and most recently he allowed 2 ER over 6.0 innings. The Nationals have the following numbers against Jacob:
- Harper 3-10, 2B
- Desmond 3-10, HR
- Escobar 3-7, 2B
- Ramos 3-8, 2B, HR
- Taylor 0-6
- Werth 1-6
- Zimmerman 2-5, HR
The Mets bats will get a crack at Joe Ross who will be making his sixth start of the season. He is 2-3 with a 3.03 ERA over his first 32.2 innings in the bigs while recording 34 strikeouts. In the month of July he has tossed 12.1 innings allowing 6 runs, 5 earned including 6.1 innings against the Mets allowing 3 runs, 2 earned. The Mets have the following numbers against Joe:
- Duda 0-2
- Flores 2-3
- Granderson 1-3
- Murphy 0-3
- Captain Kirk 0-3
- Plawecki 0-3
- Tejada 0-3
- Lagares 1-2
