Color us shocked, the New York Mets showed up in their first series with their NL East rival Philadelphia Phillies. New York has outscored Philly 10-5 in the first two games, and now goes for the series sweep in a Wednesday matinee.
Meanwhile, the Mets are in the driver’s seat. Winning this series puts them at 17-7 on the year, four games up on the Phillies in the NL East. They have won six games in a row.
What’s more, they’re now tied with the San Diego Padres for the best record in baseball.
Time: 1:10 p.m. ET
TV: SNY, MLB Network
Run Line: Mets +1.5, O/U 7.5
Pitching Matchup: Zack Wheeler (2-1, 3.79 ERA) vs. David Peterson (1-1, 3.27 ERA). Fortune should favor the Phillies, as NL Cy Young runner-up Wheeler toes the slab against his former team. We should also note that Peterson, despite his very good start to the year, doesn’t usually pitch well against Philadelphia. He has a 4.98 ERA against the Phils. Lucky for him, his 56.3% ground ball rate (GB%) should help him keep up with Wheeler.
Yet, don’t sleep on the Mets just yet. Wheeler has a 4.06 ERA in Citi Field, and can be gotten to if the Mets swing the bats early, often, and aggressively.
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X-Factor: Top of the Mets’ batting order. A big reason the Mets won this series is the top of the order has been simply sensational. Francisco Lindor is running hot and 5 for 8 with a pair of home runs in the series, plus five RBI. Pete Alonso has also kept up his torrid start, batting .375 in the first two games.
The Mets need both to keep taking strong swings with Wheeler pitching, and it’d be nice if Juan Soto got involved too. The heralded free agent signee is 0 for 8 with a pair of strikeouts in the series and hasn’t hit the ball out of the infield once.
Prediction. Sorry, Mets fans, but there’ll be no sweep today. It’s one thing catching a sinkerballer like Cristopher Sanchez on a bad night. It’s much harder to do against a bona fide ace in Wheeler. Remember, he’s coming off seven innings and 13 strikeouts in his last start, versus Miami.
That means Philly takes the finale and ride them hard on New York sports betting apps. That means the run line, the over, and take the over on Wheeler’s strikeouts too (6.5). Phillies 8, Mets 3
