NL Wild Card Series Playoff Preview: Mets vs. Padres
The New York Mets finished with the third-best record in baseball this year. They tied with Atlanta Braves and lost the division by losing their season series last weekend. The Mets will play the San Diego Padres in the Wild Card round this weekend, and they hope to advance to the NLDS starting on Tuesday.
The New York Mets and San Diego Padres met in San Francisco on June 6th and lost both games. The next day Yu Darvish blanked the Mets 7-0. Chris Bassitt was ineffective in the rubber match of the series and was eventually benched in 4th inning. They met again at the end of July at Citi Field and the Padres won the last game 4-2.
The best-of-three Wild Card format gives us great pitching matchups.
Yu Darvish and Max Scherzer are going to start the first game of the NL Wild Card Series. The winner of this series will face the Padres in the World Series, which starts in New York. For the rest of their players, the team has not announced their starting pitchers. They are probably going with Jacob deGrom. He has only one previous postseason experience. Yu Dar vied with Scherzler for the starting spot on July 22nd.
Blake Snell and Jacob deGrom are going to start against each other in Game 2 of the NLDS. Snelling is one of baseball's most dominant left-handed pitchers. DeGroom is not set in stone, but Buck Showalter is considering him to be the first-ever Game 1 starter of a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Joe Musgrove and Chris Bassitt are going to play in the NL Wild Card Series. Musgrave made the All-Star Game for the first time in his career this season. Bassit made his first start against the Padres earlier this year and he was knocked around. If the Mets don't use Bassett in Game 2, he would take the ball in final game of the series.
Manny Machado and Juan Soto are the only two players with a wRC+ over 110 for the Padres this season. The Mets have seven hitters with wrc+ north of 125. New York has the advantage of playing in their own ballpark. The Padres are -175 to win this series. They have the longest odds of any team to pull of an upset in the Wild Card round.
