Tonight, the New York Mets and the Oakland Athletics play game two of a two game series at Citi Field. Last night when former Athletic Bartolo Colon pitched against former Met Scott Kazmir, the Mets beat the A’s 10-1. Tonight, the Mets will look too sweep the series against the A’s, and will send Zack Wheeler out to the mound to face Brad Mills. Despite what it may look like on the outside, tonight’s game is more than just a “typical game two” of a series. That said, here are four things to know concerning tonight’s game:
- Zack Wheeler is not as good as thought to be: In his last outing, Wheeler pitched a complete game, three-hit shutout against the Marlins, becoming the first Mets pitcher this year to go a full nine innings. After the game was over, fans and the media went crazy stating that Wheeler had finally arrived and that it was the start of a whole new era for the Mets concerning their young pitcher. But these people need to calm down, and take a deep breath. Wheeler is still 3-7 with an ERA just below 4.00. He also had a similar game in Miami on June 3 against the Chicago Cubs, and he than managed to have two horrific starts to follow it, against the Giants and then the Padres, in which he allowed six hits and four runs in each. Therefore, Mets fans should not get their hopes up too much, as Wheeler is very likely destined for a rough outing tonight against the best team in the MLB.
- Brad Mills is making his second start of the season: Mills has been in the Major Leagues since 2009, and has spent time with the Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and is now in his first season with the Oakland Athletics. In his previous – and only – outing of the 2014 season, Mills went four innings allowing two earned runs, four hits, four walks, and one hit batsman. Perhaps facing him will be good for the Mets, as David Wright dominates against left handed pitching, and the Mets are 8-7 against left handed pitching this year.
- Travis d’Arnaud is back: On June 9, the Mets demoted rookie catcher Travis d’Arnaud to Triple-A Las Vegas due to his struggles at the plate. Many people believed that his demotion was just a scapegoat for the Mets’ offensive struggles, because they did not want to fire manager Terry Collins. Nevertheless, d’Arnaud is back for the series against the A’s after hitting north of .400 in Triple-A, and went 1-4 with a homerun in last night’s game. This means that Mets fans no longer have to watch as Anthony Recker and Taylor Teagarden make outs in big situations at the plate for the Mets.
- This could be Chris Young’s last game with the Mets: As announced this past weekend, the Mets may cut outfielder Chris Young after tonight’s game. Going into the 2014 season, offseason acquisition Young was promised a starting role in the everyday line up. Prior to the 2014 season, Young had a career slash line of .235/.315/.431 and an averaged about 18 homeruns per season. However, in his eighth full season of his career, Young has a slash line of .209/.293/.352 and only 6 homeruns. With Lagares coming back and currently five outfielders on the Mets roster, Young may end up with the short end unless he has a big night tonight for the Mets.
In 2014, the Mets are 4-4 when it comes to interleague play, and the Athletics are 3-1. However, Wheeler is definitely more dominant than Mills. So, tonight’s game can go either way, and hopefully the Mets will prevail. And just for reference, the last time the Mets played the A’s was in 2011, when the Mets took 2-3 from the club. The Mets are 10-7 in their “career” against the Athletics, so history is on their side.
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I think much like the cautionary tale you quite correctly make about Wheeler, the same applies to TdA. Look last night was an anomaly across the board in terms of offensive production (and in this case I mean offensive, not offensive…oh never mind). Ok, he hit a HR, but Colon also hit, as did every other Met. We had a K for his forst AB in which he was complete over matched, and 2 grounders. Of the 4 ABs, 3 looked eerily similar to the pre LV demotion days.
All Im saying is that Teagarden was put in 15 day DL to hedge against this call up being a bust.
I agree. It is important not to get our hopes up for d’Arnaud that much. Teagarden had the same type of night as TdA on June 10 (his first game) and he has struggled since. Hopefully this won’t be the same for d’Arnaud, but if it is… the Mets can probably throw him into a package for a trade later on towards the Trade Deadline.
Chris Young hitting those 2 HR’s will probably turn out to be a curse in the long run as it will give the Mets a reason not to cut him and for TC to play him everyday for the next month.
Perhaps those two HR’s will be a good thing. We have seen multiple times that players who are fighting for their job play better. Maybe those two HR’s represent that Young will begin to play better to keep his job. Not making any promises… it could have just been luck on Young’s part… but it could be the start of something new for Young.
My fear is that those 2 homers, like TdAs are blown out of proportion. THe anomaly was every Met skinned the ball yesterday. Basically Kazmir was throwing BP up there. Id throw out all of last nights stats in assessing who is turning the corner.
Unfortunately TC is easily bamboozled and so Im sure hes reading more into it that its worth, much to my dismay.
The good thing is that i’ve haven’t seen anyone make a big deal about TDA hitting the HR yesterday (i haven’t seen his performance yesterday being mentioned in other blogs or on talk radio) and I think most people are taking a cautious approach with him this time around.
Wheeler should look at how Colon pitches. Colon goes after the hitter and avoids deep counts. Wheeler throws to many pitches, goes into deep counts, on almost every batter. By the fourth inning has thrown over 60 to 70 pitches, he rarely makes it through the 6th inning. I think he tries to strike out every batter. I think his stuff in good enough to challenge the hitter, and stop trying it nibble around the plate. The A’s are a team that likes to wear out the the starting pitcher, and get to the bull pen. So Wheeler has to be careful, and go right after the hitters.
Odd note:
The A’s have lost only 30 games this year – but they’ve lost 18 of the 30 in a row. IOW, W L L W L W LLLL W.
I find it unusual for a good team like this to be so prone to losing multiple games in a row.
And # 5 is : will the planets again allign for Sandy Alderson in his best day as GM?
He looked smarter than his protege when he took Colon instead of Kazmir and for $2M less.
His first free agent signing hit two homeruns after “stealing” him from under the nose of Mr Moneyball.
His second free agent signing started the scoring with a 2 run homer.
His big trade of a cy young award winner produced a three run homer and breaking open the game.
And the Mets did it against Sandy’s former team. Sandy couldn’t have written the script better.
Don’t change your sox or underwear Mr Alderson as you have just experienced the perfect storm!
🙁
Earlier today, Anthony DiComo sent out a very interesting Tweet concerning the Mets and the A’s:
“If the #Mets were in the AL West, they would be 11 games out of first. If the A’s were in the NL East, they would have a 7.5-game lead.”
I think we can now all agree that the best move in the history of the A’s has to be the move from Philadelphia to Oakland… as they could have been the Mets problem.