The Mets look to take the series in a Sunday, afternoon rubber game against the Royals this afternoon. If they lose, they’ll lose two consecutive series on this road trip. If they win, they’ll win the series and improve to .500 for this 6 game road trip before returning home for a tough homestand against the Indians, Braves and Cubs.
Before we get into the pitchers today, how about Juan Lagares? Back on August 10th he was hitting .180/.254/.257 but he’s been on a little streak recently and is now hitting .218/.282/.303. To raise his stats that much in a short amount of time means he must really be hitting in his last 5 games. In his last 5 games, where he has played the entire game, he has 11 hits in 17 AB’s, or 11 of his 41 hits have come in the last 5 days. Tremendous. It’s a small sample size but things always feel good when Juan Lagares is doing well.
Zack Wheeler is 9-7 over 23 starts and 144.1 innings with a 4.36 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 1.275 WHIP and 95 ERA+. After back to back starts to start of August tossing 15.0 scoreless innings, things went off the rails in his last start and he allowed 5 runs over 5.0 innings from 12 hits and 2 walks. Because of the amount of turnover on the Royals roster, Alex Gordon is the only hitter on KC that he has seen in a major league game and Gordon is 1-3 with a double against him.
The Mets bats get Glenn Sparkman today who is in his first full season as a major leaguer. He is 3-8 over 23 games and 15 starts tossing 99.0 innings with a 5.45 ERA, 5.77 FIP, 1.444 WHIP and 86 ERA+. As a starter he has pitched 81.1 innings with a 5.75 ERA and a 1.402 WHIP. His last six starts are interesting to look at together. On July 16th he tossed a complete game shut out against the White Sox, holding them to 5 hits and 1 walk. In his next four starts he allowed 23 runs, 22 earned over 19.2 innings. In his last start he allowed only 2 runs, 1 earned, over 6.0 innings. He has never faced anyone on the Mets roster before.
Let’s Go Mets!
