Just Mets

The Mets will look to even their series against the Cubs tonight at Citi Field at 7:10 PM.

Here is Wednesday night’s starting lineup for New York:

Curtis Granderson – RF
Ruben Tejada – SS
Lucas Duda – 1B
Daniel Murphy – 3B
John Mayberry Jr. – LF
Wilmer Flores – 2B
Kevin Plawecki – C
Juan Lagares – CF
Bartolo Colon – RHP

Here is Wednesday’s pitching matchup:

Bartolo Colon (9-6, 4.89 ERA) will start for the Mets.

Jon Lester (4-6, 4.03 ERA) will start for the Cubs.

Here’s what I am looking for from the Mets on Wednesday night:

A man short.

The Mets are not only playing a man short with Michael Cuddyer out tonight, they have a guy with a .608 season OPS batting fifth in their lineup in John Mayberry Jr. He’s facing a struggling left-hander in Lester, and he was brought in specifically to hit left-handed pitching, so maybe today is the day the Mets will get a good game out of the big right-handed hitter?

Gotta win.

The manager said so himself on Tuesday night after their pain staking 1-0 loss to the Cubs. He’s right – the Mets need to figure out how to beat the Cubs, which they have not done so very often over the last couple of years. They’ve lost their last seven games to the north siders and ten of their last 12 overall.

The thing is, if they don’t hit, I don’t know how they can do it, even if Bartolo Colon manages to command his two-seamer, something he has not done very well for the bulk of the 2015 season. They showed last night stellar pitching simply isn’t enough when they have an offense which is not major league competitive.

It should be interesting, to say the least…

Run prevention.

If the Mets aren’t going to score, they need to prevent the Cubs from scoring. It’s pretty simple. But with Colon on the mound tonight, it’s going to be hard to rely on strikeouts alone. That means they’re going to be relying on their defense to play air tight behind the veteran right hander and not make a single mistake. Otherwise, it could be the game.