The Arizona Diamondbacks head home to face off against the New York Mets. The Diamondbacks are coming off two straight wins to improve to 5-8 on the season while the Mets have won 7 of their last 10 games to improve to 10-4 on the season. These two teams actually played each other in New York one week ago with the Mets winning two out of three games. The Mets have won 7 of the 9 games between these teams in the last two seasons, and they have won 12 of the last 15 games since 2019. These two franchises are trending in complete opposite directions. Both teams played yesterday and traveled to Arizona after their games, so neither team has a travel advantage. The Mets are 5-2 on the road this season while the Diamondbacks are 2-4 at home.
David Peterson gets the start for the Mets, and he hasn’t allowed a run in either of his two starts yet. That includes a 4.1 inning outing against the Diamondbacks last week. He actually faced the Diamondbacks last season twice and was hit hard in both starts. However, part of that was due to his loss of command and part of that was the Diamondbacks being one of the best teams in the league against lefties last season.
Zac Gallen will make just his second start of the season and he pitched 4 shutout innings in his first start this season. That start was also against the Mets. However, he only struck out two batters and batters usually have the advantage the second time around in such a short time period. Gallen also pitched well in his only start against the Mets last season, but this is a different Mets lineup.
The Mets bullpen worries me, but the Diamondbacks bullpen is even worse. They also used their top relievers in the close win yesterday. The Mets bullpen is ranked 18th in the league in ERA while the Diamondbacks bullpen is ranked 25th in ERA. The Mets are also ranked 3rd in the league in wOBA against righties this season while the Diamondbacks have the 5th worst wOBA in the league against lefties.
The Mets have a huge lineup advantage, as well as a bullpen advantage. The starting pitching could even be an advantage with the handedness of the two starting pitchers. The only thing I don’t like about this game is each of the starting pitcher’s history against the opposing team. However, everything else is in our favor so the price is most definitely worth it.
Take the Mets on the road.
