Both the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants entered this season as National League contenders. We are 120 games into the season and the Mets enter this August series at .500 with a 60-60 record. Mets fans envisioned the defending National League champions would be leading the division at this point. Instead, the opposite has occurred, as the Mets have had a disappointing season to this point. They enter this series 10.5 games out of first in the NL East and 4 games out of the second wild card sport.
The Giants (66-54) enter the series 1.5 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West and currently sit as the number one wild card team. The Mets kicked off their ten-game road trip in Arizona, losing two out of three at Chase Field, including a 13-5 blowout in the series finale.
The four-game set at the beautiful AT&T Park will kick off with two aces. Jacob deGrom (7-5 2.30 ERA) will face off against Madison Bumgarner (11-7 2.11 ERA) on Thursday night. Bumgarner is gaining steam in the National League Cy Young race as he leads the league in games started (25), complete games (4), innings pitched (170.2), second in the league ERA, and third in strikeouts (189). DeGrom is also sneakily in the Cy Young race, as he in the middle of an eight-start stretch in which he has a 1.52 ERA, allowing no more than one run in six of those eight starts. Bumgarner owns the Mets, posting a 4-0 record and 1.03 ERA against them in his career.
The Mets will not catch a break Friday night after facing Bumgarner, as they will face Johnny Cueto (13-3 2.97 ERA). The Mets will send the young lefty Steven Matz (9-8 3.40 ERA) to the mound. Matz is coming off the best start of his career, throwing 7.1 innings of no-hit ball for the Mets last Sunday against the Padres at Citi Field. The Giants will not be intimidated by the lefty, as they are hitting .263 against lefties this season, as compared to the .256 average they have totaled against righties.
Game three will feature Bartolo Colon (10-7 3.38 ERA) against the lefty Matt Moore (7-9 4.14 ERA). Most of the Giants lineup will be happy to see Big Sexy on the mound since they have had great success from him. Over the past five seasons, check out Giants players’ averages against Colon: Crawford .444, Pagan .400, Panik .500, Pence .500, and Posey .429. Only four players have hit against Matt Moore, who will be making his 4th career start in the National League.
The series finale will feature two pitchers with luscious locks, as Noah Syndergaard (10-7 2.76) will take the hill against Jeff Samardzija (10-8 4.24 ERA). Syndergaard is looking for his second win on the road trip after he picked up the Mets only win in Arizona, giving up two earned runs and striking out 8 in 5.2 innings.
These two teams are built on pitching and we will see some of the best, as this series will feature four of the best pitchers in the National League. The Mets are treading water and really need to at least tie this series to consider it a success. The Mets enter this series dead last in team batting average (.255) while the Giants have the 5th lowest team ERA in baseball (3.74) If the Mets fail in San Francisco, Terry Collins could be managing for his job in St. Louis, the last leg of the August road trip.
