The Mets will look for a series win against the Giants tonight at AT&T Park in San Francisco at 10:15 PM ET.
Here is tonight’s starting lineup for New York:
Curtis Granderson – RF
Ruben Tejada – SS
Daniel Murphy – 3B
Wilmer Flores – 2B
Lucas Duda – 1B
John Mayberry Jr. – LF
Kirk Nieuwenhuis – CF
Kevin Plawecki – C
Bartolo Colon – RHP
Here is tonight’s pitching matchup:
Bartolo Colon (9-6, 4.55 ERA) will start for the Mets.
Matt Cain (0-1, 9.00 ERA) will start for the Giants.
Here is what I am looking for from the Mets tonight:
More of doing just enough.
The Mets offense stinks. Plain and simple. But so far on this road trip, the Mets have gotten just enough offense, often times in bunches. In last night’s case, they did so in their last at-bat.
Better late than never.
With the Giants offense also slumping the Mets may only need one or two runs to win this game, assuming Colon is effective. As I’ve said before, for now the Mets need to find the bare minimum number of hits and runs to scratch out wins while they wait – and hope – to acquire a reinforcement and get their injured players back.
Has Bartolo Colon rediscovered his stuff?
For the most part, Colon’s season has not been a particularly good one despite nine wins on his ledger. His two-seamer has been problematic, and he’s been more or less tattooed more often than not in 2015.
That was not the case in his last start against the Cubs, however. He allowed only three hits in seven innings and deserved his tenth win of the year even though he unsurprisingly took a no-decision in a 2-0 Met loss. But hopefully he has rediscovered that two-seamer and has it firing on both corners again tonight. He can expect more of the same with the offense tonight, so he has to be sharp.
Another series win in Cali.
Should the Mets win today, they will have their second series win on what was perceived to be a difficult road trip for the struggling club. It took them nearly two months to notch a series win away from Citi Field this past weekend, and they could very well be on the verge of doing it again, which would be a nice change and tone setter heading into their weekend series against the Diamondbacks, another team who finds themselves involved in the Wild Card race for the time being.
Just Mets 