After a 4-0 shutout loss last night, expect the New York Mets to bounce back tonight and pick up the win over Washington with Mike Pelfrey on the mound.
The amount of respect that the Washington Nationals have received from bookmakers in this series is nothing short of ridiculous.
Last night’s line wasn’t too bad; Oliver Perez has been a complete disaster this season, and John Lannan has been Washington’s most reliable starter. Not sure I’d have made him that heavy of a favorite, but I can at least see where the line came from.
Game one of the series made no sense at all. The New York Mets were a +115 dog sending veteran Livan Hernandez to the mound against a pitcher making his major league debut for the Washington Nationals? Really?
I know the Mets are bad, but the Nationals are terrible. They have some dangerous bats in their lineup, but they also have plenty of dud bats sprinkled in there as well; and with the major league’s most non-existent bullpen, it isn’t a fluke that the Nationals have the MLB’s worst record by a substantial margin.
The Mets have been far from impressive this season, but at 44-49 they are still a stone’s throw away from being a .500 team. Over their last eight games they are 4-4.
This is a far cry from the Nationals, who at 27-66 are a mile under .500 and have played like it recently, dropping seven of their last eight and 11 of their last 13.
Unlike the obvious pitching mismatch in game two of the series, no such total mismatch exists in today’s game three. Pelfrey is coming off of a horrible outing in which he gave up nine runs to Atlanta. While Pelfrey at his worst is certainly very hittable (he also gave up eight earned runs in a game back on June 4th), he isn’t at his worst very often. Before his last start, Pelfrey had given up three runs or less in five of his last seven starts, and 12 of his last 15.
Craig Stammen has had a very nice rookie campaign, putting together a 4.46 ERA over 11 starts and keeping the team close more often then not. That said, keeping the team close isn’t good enough with a team like the Nationals; Stammen’s record is 2-5 this season, and the Nationals are 3-7 in his last 10 starts. With only two of his 11 starts lasting seven innings, we shouldn’t see a repeat of last night’s complete game, either.
In a game where very little separates these two teams in regards to starting pitching and offense (The Nationals have scored eight more runs than the Mets over the entire season) how can you pass up +104 on the team with the substantially stronger bullpen? The Mets’ pen is seventh in the league with a 3.71 ERA, while the Nationals’ pen is dead last by a wide margin with a 5.54 ERA.
The Pick: New York Mets +104