The Mets play the second game in their four game set with the Giants tonight as they will send Livan Hernandez against the young phenom Tim Lincecum. The Mets played very aggressive last night which is good for a lot of reasons and the one I want to point out is pressure. The Giants have good pitching so any extra pressure they can put on them will be a benefit because maybe the Mets can make the Giants pitchers make mistakes (good example: last night's wild pitch that allowed a run). Anyway the Mets will have to handle Tim tonight which is something they have done in the past and they will have to back Livan.
Livan is 3-1 over 6 games and 33.2 innings on the season with an ERA of 5.08. In his last two games he has pitched 12.1 innings, walked 6, struck out 7 and has a very nice 2.19 ERA. Last year against the Giants he went 1-1 over 3 games and 18.2 IP while allowing 11 runs. Here are the numbers the Giants have put up on Livan:
Winn 11-45, 2B, 3B
Renteria 13-36, 3 2B
Molina 7-24, 3 HR
Rowand 7-13
Lewis 2-6
Lincecum 0-5
If he can keep doing what he has been doing so far this month, then he should do fine. He has been pretty reliable so far this season. The best thing the Mets can do for him is to give him run support to back up his efforts tonight.
To do that they will have to contend with Lincecum who is 3-1 over 44.1 IP with an ERA of 3.25. Over his last 2 gameshe is 1-0 over 13.0 IP and a 3.46 ERA. Last year he lasted 6 innings against the Mets on a way to one of his five losses last year (he had the best winning percentage in the majors) as the Mets walked twice, struck out 4 times and hit him 9 times and scored 4 runs. Here are the stats the Mets have against him:
Beltran 3-5, 2B, HR
Wright 1-5
Reyes 2-6
Church 2-3, 3B
Tatis 1-3
The Mets bats showed a lot of fight coming back from the tied score to win the game in the ninth inning. If the Mets can build on that then they should be able to score runs as they got them last night off of the pen as well. Lets go Mets! Beat the Giants!
hogeo