Mets get away to Gateway of the West for three with the Cardinals

The Mets (12-5) will make their way to St. Louis to finish off their road trip with three against the NL Central-leading Cardinals (9-5). The Mets lost five of seven to the Cardinals last season, though both of those victories came at Busch Stadium.

The Mets almost let one get away on Friday but rebounded to win 6-5 in extra innings. David Peterson turned in a terrific outing, with 5.2 innings of one-run ball. Meanwhile, New York jumped to a four-run lead, with James McCann’s career-long 452 ft home run serving as the exclamation mark. The bullpen, which came in with a 17.0 inning scoreless streak, let the lead get away, with Chasen Shreve allowing a run in the seventh, Trevor May giving up two in the eighth on a Christian Walker homer, and Edwin Díaz serving up a two-out home run to Daulton Varsho in the ninth for his first blown save of 2022. The Met scratched across a run in the tenth, with Starling Marte beating out a ground ball to third to bring home the eventual game-winning run. Seth Lugo looked as good as he has all year in a scoreless bottom of the tenth to pick up the save.

New York went with a bullpen game on Saturday and ended up falling 5-2. Trevor Williams got the nod and went two-plus innings while allowing four earned runs. The rest of the pen—Sean Reid-Foley, Adam Ottavino, Joely Rodriguez, and Adonis Medina—did a mostly admirable job of keeping the Mets in the game, but the offense never really got much going against Humberto Castellanos and Arizona’s bullpen. The game most notably featured the incredibly-rare sight of two separate baserunners getting called out after getting struck by a ball in play.

The Mets extended their streak of series wins to five with a 6-2 victory on Sunday. Tylor Megill was terrific following an uneven start against the Giants, tossing 6.2 innings of two-run ball as he earned his third victory in four starts. Francisco Lindor kicked off the scoring with a first inning single that drove home Mark Canha, and New York never looked back. Walker tied it with a bomb of a home run in the fourth, but Marte got the run back in the sixth when he stole third and scurried home when the ball was thrown into left field. The stolen base was the 300th of Marte’s career. The team tacked on two more in the seventh when Travis Jankowski walked with the bases loaded and Marte was hit by a pitch to force home another run. The Mets added two runs against Oliver Perez in the eighth for some insurance runs to secure the win.

The Cardinals are coming off a series win against the Reds, though they dropped the series finale on Sunday to help Cincinnati snap their 11-game losing streak. Prior to that, St. Louis won two of three from the Marlins.

The Mets will have to watch out for Nolan Arenado, who has had a torrid start to his 2022 campaign. The third baseman leads the NL in SLG (.727), wRC+ (234) and fWAR (1.5) and is second only to Seiya Suzuki in OPS (1.180). Overall, the All Star has posted a .364/.426/.727 slash line with five home runs, 14 runs batted in, and 10 runs scored in 14 games. On the other corner of the infield, Paul Goldschmidt hasn’t gotten off to quite as good a start, slashing .236/.323/.309 with no home runs and a 94 wRC+ in 14 games.

Monday, April 25: Max Scherzer vs. Miles Mikolas, 7:45 p.m. on SNY

Scherzer (2022): 18.0 IP, 23 K, 7 BB, 1 HR, 2.50 ERA, 2.54 FIP, 0.89 WHIP, 0.5 bWAR

What will Scherzer do for an encore? In his last outing, Max Mad carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning against the Giants before relenting a two-out, run-scoring single to Darin Ruf following two walks. Scherzer rebounded to retire Joc Pederson, and even returned for the seventh for a perfect frame. In all, he went seven and allowed one run on one hit. He walked three and struck out 10, which represented his 105th double digit strikeout game. It was a vintage Scherzer start, and something fans are used to seeing the right-hander do to the Mets. In 13 career starts against St. Louis, he owns a 2.76 ERA, with 108 strikeouts in 84.2 innings.

Mikolas (2022): 15.1 IP, 13 K, 3 BB, 0 HR, 1.76 ERA, 2.12 FIP, 1.04 WHIP, 0.4 bWAR

It’s been four years since Mikolas led the National League in wins and finished sixth in NL Cy Young voting. In the past three seasons, he has posted a 4.17 ERA, a 4.30 FIP, and a 1.22 WHIP in 41 starts. He’s gotten off to a better start this year, pitching to a 1.76 ERA, a 2.12 FIP, and a 1.04 WHIP in three outings to date. He’s coming off back-to-back terrific outings against the Brewers and the Marlins. In the former, he allowed one earned run on three hits, with one walk and seven strikeouts in 6.2 innings. In the latter, he scattered four hits and he struck out five in five shutout innings. The Cardinals have won each of his three starts so far this year.

Tuesday, April 26: Chris Bassitt vs. Jordan Hicks, 7:45 p.m. on SNY

Bassitt (2022): 18.0 IP, 20 K, 4 BB, 2 HR, 3.00 ERA, 3.09 FIP, 0.94 WHIP, 0.3 bWAR

Bassitt is coming off his worst start as a Met, allowing five runs in six innings against San Francisco in a loss. As a result, his ERA jumped from 0.75 to 3.00 over the course of the evening. He was able to settle down in the later moments of the game and gave New York some much-needed innings the day after a doubleheader, which was the positive of his performance. He has gone six innings in each of his three outings, which is another encouraging aspect of his game that has helped spare the bullpen from further use.

Hicks (2022): 7.0 IP, 8 K, 4 BB, 0 HR, 1.29 ERA, 2.47 FIP, 1.00 WHIP, 0.2 bWAR

Hicks will make his second career start on Tuesday against New York. The fireballing right-hander, who spent the 2019 season as St. Louis’ closer, made his first start against Miami, allowing one earned run on two hits with three strikeouts in three innings. He tossed 46 pitches in the start, 25 of which went for strikes (54%). Given that, he should probably be good for something between 50 and 60 pitches in this outing. Prior to that, he made two relief outings of two innings this year, one against Miami (one hit, one walk, three strikeouts), and one against the Royals (no hits, one walk, two strikeouts).

Wednesday, April 27: Carlos Carrasco vs. Steven Matz, 1:15 p.m. on SNY

Carrasco (2022): 18.1 IP, 20 K, 3 BB, 2 HR, 1.47 ERA, 2.77 FIP, 0.60 WHIP, 0.7 bWAR

Carrasco was sensational in a Thursday matinee at Citi Field against San Francisco, allowing two earned runs on four hits over 7.2 sparkling innings. At one point, he sat down 18 straight Giants and was on cruise control for much of the afternoon. He struck out seven and did not walk a batter. It was a special outing for Cookie, who was hindered much of last year by injuries and was not the Carrasco Mets fans expected him to be. It’s incredible to watch him pitch to his career norms and provide the rotation another great option, and if he can remain healthy, there’s no reason to think he won’t continue being effective.

Matz (2022): 13.2 IP, 17 K, 3 BB, 1 HR, 5.27 ERA, 2.16 FIP, 1.61 WHIP, -0.2 bWAR

Matz’s agent spurning the Mets and taking a four-year deal from the Cardinals in the offseason led to Steve Cohen going on a spending spree that eventually resulted in Escobar, Canha, Marte, and Scherzer ending up in New York. In his first start with St. Louis, he was rocked by the Pirates, allowing seven earned runs on nine hits in three innings. He’s been better since then, shutting out a potent Brewers club over 5.2 innings and allowing one earned run on seven hits against the Reds his last time out. He earned the victory in each of those two outings as his ERA has dropped from 21.00 to 5.27. He faced his old team once last year and allowed two earned runs over 5.2 innings in the loss.

Prediction: The Mets take two of three from St. Louis to continue their series-winning streak!