Just Mets

The Mets will look to even their series against the Cardinals tonight at 7:15 PM ET at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Here is tonight’s starting lineup for New York:

Curtis Granderson – RF
Daniel Murphy – 2B
Michael Cuddyer – LF
Lucas Duda – 1B
Wilmer Flores – 2B
Kirk Nieuwenhuis – LF
Ruben Tejada – SS
Johnny Monell – C
Bartolo Colon – RHP

Here is tonight’s pitching matchup:

Bartolo Colon (9-7, 4.46 ERA) will start for the Mets.

John Lackey (7-5, 2.99 ERA) will start for the Cardinals.

Here is what I am looking for tonight from the Mets…

Is anyone going to hit?

With Bartolo Colon pitching, the Mets are likely to need more than two or three runs to win tonight. And, outside of their home runs, they’ve manufactured one run in their last five games.

It’s the same old song with the offense. Everyday the hope is they can just score four runs, because when they do, they’re 34-5 this season. But right now, it seems like such a huge question to ask of this club on a consistent basis.

Bart needs the two-seamer.

His last start before the break came against the Giants, and he was fair in allowing three runs and ten hits in six innings, although he took the loss when the Mets could not even muster a single run against Matt Cain and the Giants.

Colon is going to need to be spot on with his two-seamer if he’s going to stand a chance tonight. If it’s even the slightest bit off, the Cardinal hitters are just going to eat him up and quickly.

His worst start of the year came against the Cardinals in May, and that was the result of not having the two-seamer, or anything else for that matter.

A must-win?

It’s the time of year when teams simply cannot lose consecutive games very often if they want to remain in contention.

So why start here?

The Mets just have to find a way to get it done and force the rubber game tomorrow afternoon. It’s difficult – St. Louis is a league-best 32-11 at home, the Mets are 13-25 against teams with a .500 record or better, and they’ve lost 16 of their 24 games against teams in the National League Central so far in 2015.

So, it’s time to turn those marks around, right?