After getting their brains bashed in by Daniel Murphy and the Washington Nationals, the New York Mets get no time off to mope around and lick their wounds. They took quite a shellacking in DC, getting outscored 20-6, but now they must brace themselves for a grudge match at Citi Field with the best team in baseball – the Chicago Cubs.
The last time these two teams tangled, the Mets swept the Cubs in the National League Championship Series, and don’t think for a minute that Joe Maddon doesn’t have his warriors ready to dish out some revenge.
“We’ve got a little chip on our shoulders,” right-hander Kyle Hendricks said Wednesday after pitching the Cubs to a 9-2 victory over the Reds to complete a three-game sweep. “We remember what happened last year.”
The four-game series which begins tonight brings together two teams that are seemingly going in opposite directions right now. The Cubs come to town with the best record in baseball including an MLB high 26 wins on the road. While the Mets have lost 10 of their last 16 games and are 25-29 since May 1.
Here are the pitching probables:
Thursday: RHP John Lackey (7-4, 3.29) vs. LHP Steven Matz (7-3, 3.29) 7:10 PM
Friday: RHP Jason Hammel (7-4, 2.58) vs. RHP Jacob deGrom (3-4, 2.67) 7:10 PM
Saturday: RHP Jake Arrieta (12-2, 2.10) vs. RHP Bartolo Colon (6-4, 2.86) 7:15 PM
Sunday: LHP Jon Lester (9-3, 2.03) vs. RHP Noah Syndergaard (8-3, 2.49) 1:10 PM
Before Wednesday’s finale against the Nationals, manager Terry Collins dreaded the prospect of a loss and stressed to his team how important a win would be. “It would put a better taste in our mouth after a sub-par road trip. It would mean trailing by four games instead of six games.”
These next four games against the Cubs are critical, but so are the three against the suddenly hot Miami Marlins and then four more against the Nationals leading up to the All Star break.
And while the Mets are tangling with two of the top teams in the National League, the Nationals are playing the league’s worst, hosting the Reds and Brewers at home.
It’s a scary thought, but the Mets could very well end the first half of the season under .500 and 10 or more games back if they don’t get their collective shit together.
And nobody is feeling sorry for them… In fact everyone wants to stick it to them. It may not feel that way, but the Mets are still the defending National League champs.
A frustrated Collins seemed out of options and out of answers last night. “They’re major-league players, so they’ve got to understand, if they keeping adding pressure on themselves, they’re going to continue to struggle.”
“They’ve got to be themselves. If you try to be something you’re not… you’re going to struggle. We’ve just got to continue to try to get up and get a good pitch to hit and try to barrel the ball up and take what happens.”
Sounds easier said than done. If they’re not crushing home runs in bunches, they’re awful to watch, wasting precious scoring opportunities and stranding a small village on the bases. Sooner or later something’s gotta give or it won’t be long until we start hearing the call’s for Collins’ head. In fact, you can already hear the whispers.
Even with recent elbow scares, the Mets still have the pitching to win the division, but until this team can start averaging more than 4.0 runs per game, it doesn’t matter if you have five Tom Seavers in their prime in the rotation.
