Game Preview: Brewers vs Mets

The Mets are back! The 2024 season will finally start this afternoon as the Mets welcome the Brewers to Queens. For the second year in a row weather has interrupted the Mets plans for the home opener, causing the Mets to push the game back by a day. We watched most of the league have fun and celebrate the opening to their seasons yesterday, and now it’s finally our turn.

The Mets had a 2023 to forget. The expectations going into last season were sky high as the Mets were incredibly active signing Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, José Quintana and David Robertson while resigning Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Díaz. Then injuries happened and the Mets season got off-track, real fast. The Mets traded a lot of the marquee players at the trade deadline and bolstered their farm system.

Understanding how last year ended is key for understanding the start of this year. The most impactful change for the Mets is having David Stearns at the helm. The Mets needed to fill out there rotation in their off-season which they did by signing Luis Severino, Sean Manaea and trading for Adrian Houser. Stearns then rebuilt bullpen depth with a flurry of major league and minor league signings. With the addition of J.D. Martinez, Stearns has built a team that can contend for a Wild Card spot. The farm system also has more than a few players in Luisangel Acuña, Drew Gilbert, Christian Scott, Dom Hamel and Mike Vasil who could all impact the Mets this season. The Mets took a weird journey to get to the point they are in right now, can they surprise baseball pundits and overperform this year?

José Quintana will make his first Opening Day start of the season. Quintana’s season got off to a scary start last spring when a benign lesion was discovered on his rib. Quintana had a long recovery period after the surgery and returned to the baseball field in late 2024. He had a strong finish to the season, starting 13 games throwing 75 2/3 innings with a 3.57 ERA, 3.52 FIP, 1.308 WHIP and a 118 ERA+. Much of his success last season came from batters not making solid contact against him. He was in the 87th percentile for Barrel% and 88th for Hard-Hit%. The Brewers have the following career numbers against him:

  • Willy Adames 4-10, 2B, HR, BB, 3 K
  • Jake Bauers 1-1
  • William Contreras 3-4, 2B, HR
  • Eric Haase 1-2
  • Rhys Hoskins 3-12, HR, 5 BB, 3 K
  • Joe Ross 0-2
  • Gary Sánchez 0-3, BB, K
  • Christian Yelich 7-32, 4 2B, BB, 8 K

The Mets bats will get their season started against Freddy Peralta. Peralta’s ERA+ has been above 110 every season since 2020, he has consistently been a good pitcher when he’s on the field. Last season was the first season where he was able to start 30 games and recorded a career high in innings pitched with 165 2/3. He had a 3.86 ERA, 3.85 FIP, 1.117 WHIP with a 112 ERA+. An area of concern for him last year was the long ball, he allowed a career high of 26 homers, and had a 1.4 HR/9 inning, a rate he hadn’t seen since 2019 (1.6, below 1.0 from 2020-22). Peralta’s first start of the season last year was also against the Mets where he shut the Mets out over six innings, hold them to two hits and three walks while striking out seven batters. The Mets have the following career numbers against him:

  • Pete Alonso 1-4, 2B, BB, K
  • Harrison Bader 4-16, 2B, HR, BB, 6 K
  • Francisco Lindor 1-4, 3 BB, 2 K
  • Starling Marte 2-10, 3B, K
  • Jeff McNeil 0-4, 2 K
  • Brandon Nimmo 0-5, BB, K
  • Joey Wendle 0-5, 3 K

Three Things To Watch For:

  1. Mets Opening Day Record: The Mets have the best Opening Day record in baseball. Last year’s win improved their record to 41-21 on the first day of the season. This is even more impressive when you consider that the Mets were 0-6 for the first six Opening Days. The Mets have won eight of their last nine Opening Days, with their last loss coming in 2019 against the Nationals.
  2. New Manager, Carlos Mendoza. Carlos Mendoza will manage his first official game with the New York Mets this afternoon and this will be our first real view at his in-game managing style. Who does he talk to during the games? How does he develop players during the game? Are pitchers in the bullpen up and down? Is today just another game or does it mean more because it’s the first game? Tim Healey of Newsday had a great quick story about Mendoza as a father this week.
  3. Edwin Díaz: At some point this week we are going to see Edwin’s return to Citi Field. Edwin was the soul of the team in 2022. His entrance not only made games fun, but kicked other ballparks around the league into overdrive to develop the infrastructure to take closer entrances to the next level. He has battled over the last year coming back from injury and we just can’t wait for him to step on the mound for the first time this year.

Let’s Go Mets!

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