Tuesday May 9th Baseball

[Tinfish]

YTD Record (15-8)

NY Mets -133 @ Philadelphia Phillies

After coming off a heated inter-divisional series taking 2 out of 3 from Atlanta, the Mets head into another and more important inter-divisional series against the red hot Phillies who’ve won their last 8 in a row. Both teams send righties to the mound tonight where the Phils have a slight edge batting .277 vs .264 for the season against righties. This is the first meeting of the season between the two. The home team has only won 9 out of the last 20 matchups between these teams. Last year, the Mets won the first game of each of their series with the Phils. The Phils only won 3 times at home against the Mets in 8 tries. The Phils are .500 at home at 10-10 while the Mets are 9-4 on the road. The Mets are 10-1 (3-1 after a loss) in game 1 of a series for the season while the Phils are 5-6 (5-2 after a win).

The Mets send in their ace Pedro tonight. He is 5-0 for the season out of 6 starts. The Mets have won all his starts this season. He has an ERA of 2.72, OBP of .245, and a WHIP of 0.86. That’s just nasty! He has held all his opponents to about 1-3 runs this season and haven’t given up more than 6 hits in any game. He has faced the Phils 6 times in his career where his teams went 3-3. As a Met, they are 2-1 when he starts against the Phils where his only loss was their last meeting where he gave up 5 ERs in 7 innings. The other 2 meetings last year, he held the Phils to 5 hits or less and 2 runs or less. Of the Phils regulars, the only 2 bats that have had success against him are Howard and Utley. However, Howard only has 3 at-bats against Pedro. Utley is my only concern in this matchup as he bats .333 career against Pedro and his bat has been red hot over the last week. The stat that interests me is the backup he will be receiving as both Abreu and Burrell has not had any success against Pedro batting .150 and .000 respectively against him with 34 total at bats. Also, over the last 7 games Abreu is batting at .167 and Burrell is batting at .188. What use is getting on base when the guys behind you can’t drive you in?

The Phils send Myers to the mound who is 2-1 for the season with a good 3.11 ERA. The Phils are 3-3 when he starts. It seems he pitches better in the day than at night as he has a 1.32 ERA in day games and an ERA of 4.12 for night games. He’s pitched very well this season not giving up more than 3 ERs in all of his starts this year averaging about 5-7 innings per game. In his last 10 starts against the Mets, the Phils are 5-5. Of those 10 starts, the Phils were 1-4 at home with Myers not last more than 3 innings in 3 of those games and giving up 6 ERs in 2 of those games. What I love about the Mets tonight is how they matchup against Myers. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.

Reyes 0.318
Lo Duca 0.348
Beltran 0.389
Delgado 0.667
Wright 0.231
Floyd 0.333
Nady 0.000
Matsui 0.357
Castro 0.667
Franco 0.500

7 of the 8 Mets regulars are batting over .300 against Myers. Wright and Nady are the only two who haven’t hit him well, but Wright does have 2 homers against Myers out of 13 at bats and Nady only have faced him with 2 at bats. Of all the regulars, the Mets have 9 homeruns against Myers.

I see both pitchers going 7 innings tonight as I see the Mets having a slim lead. Both pens have been outstanding this season but give the edge to the Phils. But I think the Mets will be able to hang on to win this game 4-2, 5-3.

[Tinfish]

San Diego Padres -103 vs. Milwaukee Brewers

We have two teams going in opposite directions. The Brewers have lost 3 in a row and 5 of their last 6. The Pads has been red hot and looking to win their 10th straight. The main reason why the Pads are so hot is with outstanding pitching. Over the last 5 games, their pitching has given up only 3 runs or less in each of those games, 2 of those games being shutouts. Over their last 10 games, the Pads have only given up a total of 28 runs (2.8 runs/game). They will need to continue to rely on their pitching as they are facing a very solid Davis tonight at Petco.

Davis is 2-2 for the season and the Brewers are 5-2 when he starts. Other than the beating he took at Houston, he has his opponents to about 3 runs per game averaging about 5-6 innings per game. He has been brilliant in his last 2 starts shutting out the Giants in 6 innings in his last outing and holding the Cubbies to 1 run in a little over 6 innings. But then again, that’s against the Giants and the Cubbies. Davis has faced the Pads 5 times in his career and his teams are 3-2. As a Brewer, they are 2-2. He’s held them to 2 runs or less in 3 of those games and he gave up 5 ERs in 1 game working 4 innings. Of the Pads regulars, 6 of them are batting over .300 against Davis but overall the Pads are having difficulties with lefties as of late batting only .205 against them.

The Brewers counter with Hensley who has been pretty good so far in his debut season in the bigs. He is 1-2 in 5 starts this season and the Brewers are 2-3. In 3 of his starts, he has held his opponent to 1 run or less in about 5 innings of work per game. However, he’s given up 3 and 4 runs in 2 starts at home this season. Interestingly, of all his starts, he has not given up more than 5 hits in any game. Also, he has an ERA of 4.28 compared to Davis’ 5.35. He has an OBP of .333 and a WHIP of 1.39 compared to Davis’ OBP of 3.80 and WHIP of 1.76. The numbers are close and Hensley has been a tad bit better.

This isn’t where I see the value in the Pads tonight as I hope the Hensley can keep them close towards the latter part of the game where there is tons of value for the Pads. The Pads bullpen for the season has an overall ERA of 2.66 and a WHIP 1.10. Pretty damn good. In all of the relievers last 3 appearances they’ve only given up 1 ER in about a little over 13 innings of work. Their closer Hoffman has only given up 1 ER in 11 relief appearances this season. The Brewers on the other hand have a pretty dismal pen this season, especially lately. They have 9 guys in the pen and have had trouble getting to their closer Turnbow. Everyone has given up at least a run in his respective last 3 appearances. In their last series with the Dodgers, the pen has given 7 ERs in about 8 innings or relief. In 2 of the 3 games, the pen blew 3 ties for the Brewers ultimately costing them 2 games.

I’m banking on Hensley and the Pads bats keeping the game close and let the Brewers pen lose another game for them as Davis will probably only get in 6 innings tonight, especially with the Pads getting last ups playing at home and they are riding a 9-game winning streak