213 Miles From Shea

Baseball is still not clicking for the Mets on all cylinders as they dropped another game last night. Last night, their starter gave up all the runs and the bullpen was able to keep it together, but it didn’t matter as the offense couldn’t over come the 5 runs that Milone allowed (but Grandy homered, despite being lowered to 8th in the lineup). So the Mets have some work to do today as Matt Harvey takes the mound against Patrick Corbin.

Matt Harvey is 2-3 over 7 games and 40.0 innings this year with a 5.63 ERA, 6.47 FIP and 1.425 WHIP. His last three starts have been torrid as he has allowed 17 runs over his last 14.2 innings (10.43 ERA). Prior to that, he had a 2.84 ERA over his first four starts. He last faced the Diamondbacks in 2015 where he allowed 11 hits and 5 walks leading to 4 runs in 14.0 innings (2.57 ERA). The Diamondbacks have the following numbers against Matt:

• Goldschmidt 1-8, HR, BB
• Blanco 0-7
• Descalso 1-5, BB
• Owings 0-6
• Peralta 1-5, HR, BB
• Tomas 2-6
• Mathis 0-4

The Mets bats will get a chance at Patrick Corbin who is 3-4 over 8 starts and 45.1 innings with a 4.17 ERA, 4.14 FIP and 1.390 WHIP. May has been rough to Corbin. He started the month allowing 8 runs over 4.0 innings in Colorado and then allowed 4 runs over 6 innings in Pittsburgh. Last year he only pitched 2.0 innings against the Mets where he allowed 1 hit and a 1 walk and nothing else. The Mets have the following numbers against Corbin:

• Bruce 2-11, HR, 3 BB
• Lagares 1-9, 2B
• Reyes 4-8, 2B, BB
• Flores 06
• R Rivera 1-4
• Walker 0-3
• Duda 1-2, HR
• Harvey 1-2, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

Today’s Picture of the day comes from 4/14/17 in St. Lucie with Justin Dunn, one of the top pitchers in the system getting some work in.

Breaking up my drive up north with the baby Mets in St. Lucie and the #3 Mets prospect Justin Dunn (rhp) #ElliotTakesALongDrive #Roadtrip3

A post shared by Elliot Lester (@eteich1100) on Apr 14, 2017 at 3:59pm PDT

The Mets were on their way last night to ending their losing streak until the 8th inning when the bullpen imploded for a second straight day and the Mets ended up having a tied game at 1-1 and entered the 9th inning trailing 7-1 (and made it a bit closer to 3-1). So now the Mets find themselves mired in a five game slide against the ace of the Diamondbacks staff who has returned to form this year in Zack Greinke.

Before we get to that, let’s talk about the Mets starter. The Mets will send out Tommy Milone for his second start as a Met. Last time out he allowed 2 ER over 5.0 innings with 6 hits and 2 walks, which is pretty serviceable for your 5th starter. The concern right now for the Mets is the bullpen and with Tommy on the mound, the Mets will probably have to go to the pen early as he is still being stretched out. The Diamondbacks have the following numbers against him:

• Mathis 2-9
• Blanco 1-2, BB
• Goldschmidt 2-3, HR
• Herrmann 0-1

Zack Greinke has bounced back this year going 4-2 over 8 starts and 51.2 innings with a 2.79 ERA, 3.05 FIP and 1.026 WHIP. His better seasons, not surprisingly, have come when his WHIP stays below 1.200. May has been particularly good to him as he has allowed 3 ER over 15.0 innings with 7 hits and 1 walk while striking out 18. Last year he was average against the Mets allowing 5 hits and 1 walk over 6.0 innings leading to 3 runs. The Mets have the following numbers against Zack:

• Granderson 14-61, 3 2B, 2 3B, HR, 3 BB
• Cabrera 15-35, 3 2B, 3B, 5 BB (.500 OBP)
• Bruce 7-37, HR, 2 BB
• Walker 7-27, 2B, 4 HR, BB, (.310 OBP, .741 SLG, 1.051 OPS)
• Duda 3-17, HR, 3 BB
• Flores 4-14
• Conforto 1-9, HR
• deGrom 2-7, 2B, BB
• Lagares 1-8, HR
• Plawecki 2-6, 2B
• R Rivera 3-5, 2 2B

Lets Go Mets!

Curtis Granderson playing catch before the first pitch of the game on 5/9/17

After not dropping 4 series in the row, the Mets laid a goose egg this weekend as they got swept by the Brewers and now are on a 4 game losing streak. Yesterday the Mets had a 7-1 lead at one point but squandered it as the bullpen went into full meltdown mode. Rather than focusing on that, let’s file that under “things that happen to the Mets when the play in Milwaukee” and move on to Arizona.

For the second time this season, Zack Wheeler will face a “Zack” (first time I believe it was a Zac, but I’m not sure). This will be the first time this year that both starting pitchers spell “Zack” the same way. Now that we got that fun fact out of the way, Wheeler is 2-2 over 6 games and 32.1 innings with a 4.18 ERA, 4.22 FIP and 1.206 WHIP. In his last two official starts he has allowed 3 runs, 2 earned over 6.2 innings however he has allowed 8 walks which have been blowing up his pitch count. Arizona has the following numbers against him:

• Goldschmidt 2-9, BB
• Blanco 1-7, 2B
• Owings 2-6, 2B
• Pollock 0-5, BB
• Mathis 0-4, BB
• De La Rosa 0-1

The Mets bats will try to move Heaven and Earth against Godley today who is 1-0 in two starts and 12.0 innings with a 2.25 ERA, 3.09 FIP and 1.000 WHIP. Last year he was 4-5 in 27 games and 9 starts for the Diamondbacks with a 6.39 ERA, 4.97 FIP and 1.487 WHIP. He picked up a win two game (one start) against the Mets last year holding the Mets to 5 hits and 2 walks with 2 runs over 8.1 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Zack:

• Bruce 1-6
• Reyes 1-4
• Granderson 0-3
• TJ Rivera 1-3, 2B
• Flores 0-1
• Reynolds 0-1
• R Rivera 0-1

Let’s Go Mets!

Apple and Clouds above Citi Field on 5/9/17

Stitched together photos showing the night sky changing throughout the game from the Big Apple Reserve on 5/9/17.

Last year the Mets had a rough three game series in Milwaukee where they one the first game and then dropped the next two. The Mets are having another terrible series in Wisconsin and they look to savage the third game of the series today. Last night Terry went into full “let’s just try things” mode once the game got away from the Mets including putting Reyes in center (Mets had 4 CF’s last night) and T.J. in left.

Jacob deGrom will try to put the Mets train back on the tracks. On the season he is 2-1 over 7 games and 42.2 innings with a 3.80 ERA, 3.35 FIP and 1.336 WHIP. His season trends continue of putting up huge strikeout numbers (4 games in double digits) but still allowing a lot of runs. Last year he allowed 4 runs and 5 hits over 5.0 innings in a no decision start against the Brewers who have the following numbers against him:

• Peralta 0-3
• Peres 1-3, 2B
• Shaw 0-2, BB
• Villar 2-3, 2B

The Mets bats will get a chance at Wily Peralta who isn’t off to the best start posting a 4-2 record over 7 games and 35.2 innings with a 5.30 ERA, 5.24 FIP, and 1.514 WHIP (although his WHIP is exactly what it has been the last few seasons). In his last four starts he has tossed 18.2 innings with a 7.71 ERA. He was 1-1 over two games with the Mets allowing 11 hits and 3 walks in 10.2 innings leading to 6 runs. The Mets have the following numbers against Wily:

• Bruce 4-23, HR, BB
• Walker 4-18, 2B, HR, 2 BB
• Granderson 8-14, 2 2B, 3B, 3 HR, BB
• Duda 4-11, 2 2B, BB
• Flores 1-8
• Conforto 2-6, HR
• R Rivera 0-5
• Cabrera 2-5, HR

Let’s Go Mets!

Below is a panoramic of the view from the Big Apple Reserve after Conforto hit a homer on 5/9/17

The Mets dropped the first game of the series to the Brewers last night thanks to a lack luster start from Matt Harvey. That’s alright though as the Mets have today’s game to get back on the right track with Robert Gsellman.

Robert Gsellman is 2-2 over 7 games and 6 starts with a 6.54 ERA over 31.2 innings while posting a 4.87 FIP and 1.642 WHIP. Gsellman’s last start was an improvement over his previous two which were torrid. Last time out he allowed 3 runs over 8 hits and no walks in 5.0 innings of work. This will be Gsellman’s first time facing the Brewers and he has never faced anyone on the Brewers roster when they were members of other teams.

The Mets bats draw Zach Davies today who is 302 over 7 starts this year with a 5.60 ERA, 4.84 FIP, and 1.755 WHIP. So on the season numbers, Davies has been similar to Gsellman with a large difference between ERA and FIP and a rather high WHIP (Davis previous two seasons WHIP capped at 1.249). Unlike Gsellman, Davis has been much better of late. In his last three starts he has tossed 15.2 innings with a 2.30 ERA (his ERA was 8.24 through the first four games of the season). Last year he went 1-0 in two games against the Mets allowing 5 runs, 4 earned and 8 hits over 11.1 innings of work. The Mets have the following numbers against Davies:

• Jay Bruce 1-8, HR, BB
• Granderson 1-6, HR
• Walker 0-5, BB
• Plawecki 0-4
• Conforto 1-2, 2B, BB
• Reynolds 0-3
• Cabrera 1-2
• Flores 0-2

Let’s Go Mets!