With a very successful opening road trip now wrapped up, the Mets head home to kick off their second three game series against the Washington Nationals. The Nationals barely split a short two game series with the Philadelphia Phillies thanks to a walk-off walk courtesy of the struggling David Robertson. So far this season, the bullpen has been the team’s Achilles heel as they’ve posted an MLB worst 9.92 ERA with five different relievers having allowed more Earned Runs than Innings Pitched. The worst of which belongs to Trevor Rosenthal who has allowed seven earned runs on four hits and three walks without posting a single strike-out or even recording a single out.

April 4: Noah Syndergaard (R) vs Stephen Strasburg (R)

The series kicks off with re-match between each team’s #2 guy in the respective rotations. Last time out, they both posted six inning performances allowing four earned runs on seven hits with Syndergaard striking out seven batters against Strasburg’s eight. Notable from that game though was the fact that Strasburg’s Fastball velocity was down vs this time last season from 95.6 mph in 2018 to 93.4 last week. The velocity dropped carried over to his other pitches as well with the change-up dropping from 89.1 mph to 87.2 mph, the slider down from 89.1 mph to 87.8 mph, and the curveball down from 82.1 mph to 79.8 mph.

While Strasburg was still able to generate 15 swings and misses (15.6% whiff rate) with this reduced velocity, it came at the expense of a lot more “hard contact”.  JD Davis, Amed Rosario(2x), Pete Alonso, Wilson Ramos(2x), and Jeff McNeil all produced batted ball exit velocities of over 100.0 mph against Strasburg and should be expected to be in the lineup again.

For Syndergaard, all the velocity and movement readings from his first start of the season were in-line to what we should expect as he’ll just look to execute better this time around. It will be a huge relief for him to not have to deal with Trea Turner on the base-paths. While he’s mostly held him in check at home plate (.210 AVG against), the four times Turner has reached base against Syndergaard have resulted in four stolen bases and three runs scored. The only other significant sample of Batter vs Pitcher advantage belongs to Anthony Rendon‘s .363 AVG against him with two home runs and three doubles.

April 6: Steven Matz (L) vs Patrick Corbin (L)

With an off-day in between the 1st and the 2nd games of the series, the Mets are planning on adjusting their rotation to break up the current back to back lefty configuration. By moving Matz ahead of Wheeler on the schedule, they will be keeping him on “normal” rest while giving Wheeler an extra day in between starts.

Last time out, Corbin held the Mets to only two runs scored on seven hits, striking out four. Much like Strasburg though, the Mets made a lot of “hard contact” against Corbin in that game producing seven batted balls with an exit velocity over 100.0 mph with three of those coming off the bat of JD Davis.

On the other side, Steven Matz has had some mixed success in his career against the Nationals. Across 10 starts against them, he has a 1-5 record with a 3.93 ERA, .256 AVG Against, and a 8.3 K/9 rate. While Matz was superb against them in two starts each in 2016 and 2017, he may have been overexposed in 2018 as he made a whopping six starts against them. From a batter vs pitcher perspective, Matz will be glad to not have to face Trea Turner as the injured SS has a career .318 AVG/.784 OPS against him. He will have to figure out a way to minimize damage from Anthony Rendon who has a career .333 AVG/1.042 OPS with 3 HR and 6 RBI against him.

April 7: Zack Wheeler (R) vs Max Scherzer (R)

Due to all the off-days early in the season for the Nationals (April 5th will be their 3rd of the season already), they were able to squeeze Scherzer’s 2nd start of the season BEFORE needing to use their #4 SP Anibal Sanchez. By doing so they were able to line Scherzer up to make his 3rd start of the season in the series finale. So far this season, Scherzer has been getting a taste of what it was like to be Jacob deGrom in 2018 as he has started the year (0-2) despite only allowing two earned runs in each of his first two starts. The Nationals have not yet scored a single run for Scherzer this season.

His last time out, Scherzer struck out nine Phillies batters while generating a solid 14.6% whiff rate but the Phillies were able to run his pitch count up to 96 pitches after only five innings pitched. With Scherzer out of the game, the Phillies were able to beat up on the beleaguered Nationals bullpen scoring four runs in the sixth inning and two more in the eighth.

Wheeler will be looking to improve on his last start against the Nationals which saw him give up four earned runs on six hits while striking out seven. Granted, for what it’s worth, Wheeler was basically beaten single-handedly by the now injured Trea Turner (noticing a trend here yet??). In that game Wheeler only allowed three “hard contact” exit velocities over 100.0 mph of which two came off Turner’s bat, including a three run home run in the third inning. Without Turner, the Nationals will need Adam Eaton (8 hits in his last 9 ABs vs Wheeler) and Anthony Rendon (.346 AVG/.815 OPS against) to continue their career success against Wheeler.