The Orioles are making things just slightly tougher for the Mets tonight, scheduling a split doubleheader rather than a day/afternoon doubleheader on a getaway day for the Mets. After tonight’s game the Mets will need to speed out of Baltimore and head to Kansas City. The Mets are getting reinforcements in Kansas City with Kodai Senga and Sean Manaea rejoining the rotation. Both pitchers though will probably be on pitch counts, so the Mets need to be careful tonight with their bulk pitchers, even though this game is a bullpen game.
Justin Hagenman looks to get the bulk of the work in the night cap for the Mets. Over three games this season for the Mets, Hagenman has pitched 10 1/3 innings with a 4.35 ERA, 4.92 FIP, 0.968 WHIP and a 91 ERA+. His last time out was a bit of a rougher appearance, allowing four runs from three home runs against the Yankees over 4 1/3 innings. In previous six innings he allowed only one run while striking out five batters.
Mets batters will get their first look Tomoyuki Sugano, the long time NPB pitcher who made the jump to MLB this season. Sugano has pitched 93 1/3 innings over 17 starts this season with a 4.44 ERA, 5.25 FIP, 1.307 WHIP and an 87 ERA+. Sugano had a 3.04 ERA, 4.70 FIP through is first 12 starts this season. Since then he has pitched 22 1/3 innings over five games with an 8.87 ERA and a 6.98 FIP. He’s given up 13 runs from 19 hits and two walks over his last two starts.
Three Things To Watch For:
- Pete Alonso homerun watch. Alonso is nearing Strawberry’s franchise record of 252 home runs. Alonso is sitting at 247 home runs and he loves hitting bombs at Camden Yards with five of them so far over nine games. Maybe he’ll provide some fireworks for all the Mets fans who traveled down 95 today to catch the Mets playing two!
- Sugano’s bizarre under the hood stats. Sugano has had an odd season so far getting positive results over his first 12 games and struggling over his last five. Part of the reason for the discrepancy is what’s happening per at bat. He’s in the 93rd percentile for walks (4.8%) which is very good! But he’s near the bottom of the league in striking out batters (3rd percentile, 14.4%). He’s only getting groundballs 42% of time (50th percentile) and while he’s preventing batters from getting hard contact against him (38.8% of time, 67th percentile), hitters are barreling the ball at a high rate (12%, 8th percentile).
- Justin Hagenman and pitch selection. Hagenman has used his sinker 32.1% of time this season, mixing in a cutter, changeup and a slider to round out his pitch mix. He’s getting groundouts around 42% of the time, which is slightly below the 50th percentile mark for the league. His sinker has also been his most hit able pitch so far over 10 1/3 innings, with a xBA of .299 and xSLG of .826. Some of this is noise from his last outing against the Yankees. Let’s see if the Mets pitching lab has him doing slightly different things today!
Let’s Go Mets!
