The Mets will try for three in a row tonight as they go west to San Francisco. The Mets will be sending out Oliver Perez tonight, who will hopefully give us a Dr. Jekyll tonight rather than his Mr. Hyde. Perez will be facing Jonathan Sanchez, the 25 year old Left handed pitcher for the Giants.
Sanchez represents that young, unknown pitcher, that usually gives the Mets fits. He faced the Mets in 2006 for 1.2 innings of relief where he allowed no hits, no runs, no walks and struck no one out. He ultimately got the win in that game. On the season, Sanchez is 3-3 over 11 games and 61.1 innings pitched. He has an ERA of 4.26 this season. There really are no stats for Mets batters against him. Scheneider has the most AB's with 3, getting no hits. Chuch has 2 PA's, with an RBI and BB. Besides that a few other Mets have had one PA or AB resulting in no hits. Here are some splits on Sanchez's season:
Right Handed Batters: .250 BA
Left Handed Batters: .220 BA
Home 6 G, 2.78 ERA
Away 5 G, 6.31 ERA
His Home and Away ERA split worries me, but an energized Mets team should hopefully damage him.
Perez has not been spectacular in his last two starts. He has a no decision for both of those starts, the earlier resulting in a loss to the Rockies and the later one resulting in a 7-6 win over the Marlins. During those two games, Perez pitched 11 innings, allowed 9 earned runs (7.36 ERA), walked 12 and struck out 9. If he can stay away from a bad inning tonight, then he should be fine (most of his damage generally comes in one emotionally crushing inning). In 2007, he pitched against the Giants twice to the tune of an 0-1 record over 11.2 innings an ERA of 3.86. He walked 2 and struck out 9 over those two games. Here are some Giant stats against Perez:
Aurilia 7-31, 2B, 3B, 4 HR, 10 RBI
Rowand 4-13, 2B, 5 K
Vizquel 1-8
Molina 2-5
Aurilia's line is interesting to look at because his BA is not great against Perez, but 6 out of 7 times he has gotten a hit, it has been for extra bases, including 4 jacks. Goal of the night: keep Aurilia in the park.
Lets Go Mets!
