Mets Preview: The Stats Say One Thing, the Vibes Say Another
The results of the next two weeks will determine the direction of the roster, potentially for a long time.
The Atlanta Braves need to start winning games.
They walk into today’s series opener against the New York Mets in an unfamiliar position: Trailing in the NL East by double-digit games. They’re 13 behind New York and another 10.5 behind the Philadelphia Phillies, virtually eliminating their chances of returning to the top of the National League East by the end of the season.
But with 92 games left on the schedule, a Wild Card berth in MLB’s expanded playoffs isn’t completely out of the picture.
As Mark Bowman mathed out in his latest column, the Braves need to go 59-33 the rest of the way if they want to finish with 90 wins. They’ve done it several times before, including as recently as 2023. (They also did it in the non-juiced-ball year of 2022, if the offense is your worry.)
That March to 90 starts tonight with the New York Mets coming to town. As this is somehow the first meeting between these ballclubs this season, let’s look at who they are, where they’re vulnerable, and how Atlanta can win this series.
New York’s arms are getting it done despite injuries
The first thing I think about when dwelling on the New York Mets (and the Los Angeles Dodgers, to an even greater degree) is how their massive spending didn’t insulate them from cascading injuries at the same position.
New York’s currently missing three different starting pitchers and a top prospect from their rotation. Sean Manaea, who re-signed this winter with New York, is close to returning from a strained oblique he suffered in late February. Frankie Montas, who strained a lat two weeks before Manaea’s injury, is right behind him in the rehab progress.
Top prospect Christian Scott had Tommy John surgery (with an internal brace) last September and isn’t expected to return this year, while Kodai Senga strained a hamstring late last week and went on the IL on Sunday.
But despite those significant absences, New York leads baseball in rotation ERA at 2.93. The two ‘worst’ starters for the Mets are brief Braves pitcher Griffin Canning at 3.80 and swingman Tylor Megill at 3.95. They’re being paced by converted reliever Clay Holmes at 2.87 and David Peterson at 2.49, while Senga had just a 1.47 prior to the injury.
Here’s the pitching matchups for this one:
Tuesday: David Peterson (5-2, 2.49) versus Spencer Schwellenbach (5-4, 3.11)
Wednesday: Paul Blackburn (0-0, 6.75) versus Chris Sale (4-4, 2.79)
Thursday: Clay Holmes (7-3, 2.87) versus Spencer Strider (1-5, 4.35)
We’ll break down those Mets starters down below.
The bullpen isn’t full of slouches, either. They have a collective ERA of 3.08 (3rd-best) and three different relievers with ERAs of 3.25 or lower in closer Edwin Díaz (2.22), setup man Reed Garrett (0.95) and bulkman Huascar Brazobán (1.64). That trio is supported by José Buttó (3.00) and Ryne Stanek (4.88 ERA, but a 3.49 FIP and 3.62 xERA). If there’s a vulnerability here, it’s with lefties. They lost former Brave A.J. Minter to season-ending lat surgery and so have just one southpaw in the pen, May addition José Castillo.
The offense isn’t anything to dismiss, either
While the New York Mets are just 17th in batting average at .247 (only two points below Atlanta’s .245), they’re good where it counts: scoring runs.
The Mets are a top ten squad in runs scored (328, 9th) and homers (91, 6th). A lot of that is powered by their sixth-best slugging of .421, which typically comes with runners on base.
“Getting on base” ranks:
Walks: 268, 3rd
On-base percentage: .332, 3rd
HBP: 48, 1st
The Mets are powered at the plate by the three-headed monster of Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, and $700M offseason signing Juan Soto. Alonso leads the club in homers (17) and batting average (.293) and on-base percentage (.390, two points better than Soto) and slugging (.570, clearing Jeff McNeil by fifty points)
If there’s an area in which New York’s vulnerable on offense, it’s one that is familiar to Braves fans: Actually getting those hits with runners in scoring position. While Atlanta’s decidedly average in that metric at a 15th-overall .253, the Mets are 28th in the league in that situation at just .218.1 New York’s power production shines in this situation, though, with their 21 homers being tied for 6th-most in baseball. Again, they don’t make a ton of contact in those situations, but when they do, they hit it far.
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What to know about this rotation
Atlanta’s going to face lefty David Peterson in game one, followed by two straight righties in Paul Blackburn and Clay Holmes. Look for the Braves to potentially put newly-activated Stuart Fairchild into left field for game one, as neither Eli White nor Alex Verdugo have been stellar against southpaws this season.
David Peterson: 5-2, 2.49 ERA, 1.19 WHIP in 13GS/79.2 IP
Peterson’s a “kichen sink” profile, throwing two fastballs in a sinker (91.2 mph, 29% usage) and a four-seamer (92.5 mph, 24% usage) and buttressing those with a short slider (21% usage), a mostly vertical curveball (12%), and a running changeup (15%).
Lefties should expect to see sinker/slider/four-seamer, in that order, with occasional curveballs and virtually no changeups. Righties, on the other hand, will get four-seamer/sinker in almost equal amounts, followed by changeups, sliders, and curveballs in roughly equivalent amounts to each other. It’s a true five-pitch mix to righties, but southpaws are really watching for three or three-and-a-half offerings.
The goal for Peterson is to get tons of groundballs (57.6%, 94th percentile) and let the defense work behind him. They’ve helped his overall numbers - his expected ERA of 3.65 is over a full run higher than his actual ERA of 2.49.
No Braves have done that well off of Peterson, with two notable exceptions: Ronald has a .273 average, one homer, and three RBI off of Peterson in 18 at-bats, while Austin Riley has a .391 average with two RBI in 23 at-bats.
Paul Blackburn: 0-0, 6.75 ERA, 1.71 WHIP in 3G (1GS)/9.1 IP
Blackburn’s making just his second start since returning from knee inflammation, so we’re working with limited data here. In his small sample so far, he’s mostly stuck with last year’s arsenal with one significant change: completely ditching his poorly performing four-seam fastball.
Yep, he’s a cutter guy now, throwing it 31% of the time despite its below-average 89.2 mph velocity. He backs that with a horizontally breaking slider (26% usage) and then a trio of other options, ranging from a 92.2 mph sinker (17%) to a changeup (15%) and curveball (10%).
The arsenals are radically different based on handedness, albeit with small sample sizes. Blackburn, against lefties so far (92 total pitches), has gone predominantly cutter/changeup/curveball, throwing only occasional sliders and sinkers. Righties, however, see almost exclusively that slider/sinker profile, with single-digit cutters and changeups and not a single curveball to a righty this year.
He’s always been good at not getting hit too hard and getting enough groundballs, so again, that defense will need to work behind Blackburn. This is my biggest wildcard of the entire series, right here - despite poor results so far in his career (career 4.89 ERA), there’s just not enough of a sample size yet to be comfortable with what changes he’s potentially made other than scrapping a bad four-seamer.
Clay Holmes: 7-3, 2.87 ERA, 1.17 WHIP in 14GS/78.1IP
This one hurts - I’m a big fan of those reliever-to-rotation conversions (for the excess value you can get if they work out) and clearly Alex Anthopoulos is, as well, although he almost brought in Jeff Hoffman to do it instead of Clay Holmes.
“The Clay Pot”, as my Yankees friends call him, doubled the size of his arsenal with the move into the rotation. Instead of last season’s sinker/slider/sweeper, which was always a weird arsenal for a closer to have, he’s now throwing those three plus a changeup, a four-seamer, and a cutter. It’s 37% sinker at 93.3 mph, 19% sweeper and 15% slider, with the new pitches coming in at 14% (changeup), 8% (four-seamer, at 92.9 mph), and cutter (7% at 89.5 mph).
On the handedness aspect, those new pitches were clearly added to help with lefties, who hit .258 and had a strikeout rate almost half of what he did against righties. Lefties will see sinker and changeup as the main combo, followed by a trio of cutter/sweeper/slider and then some four-seam fastballs. It’s a true six-pitch mix.
Righties, however, get the “old” Holmes, for the most part - sinker/sweeper/slider is the majority of what he does, although he won’t shy away from throwing in the new trio of additions from time to time in same-handedness matchups.
The only member of the Braves with more than three at-bats against Holmes is former Red Sox rival Alex Verdugo, who is 3-5 with 2 RBI in his career off of The Clay Pot.
Keys to victory (outside of “the offense has to hit”)
I mean, duh - they’re the single biggest thing that will make or break the postseason push going forward.
But for Atlanta to take this series, assuming the bats do enough for the Braves to stay in it, the staff needs to keep the Big Three contained. Lindor hit just .191 off of Braves pitching last year, although he had three homers, two of which came in that final series in Atlanta to end the season and decide postseason eligibility. Alonso absolutely ate against the Braves last year, slashing .277/.382/.511 with two homers, eight RBI, and five runs. Juan Soto, by comparison, took a step back from his lofty .325 career average against the Braves with a .200/.385/.200 line against Atlanta while with the New York Yankees.
Don’t get me wrong, there are other threats here - Brandon Nimmo has thirteen homers and former batting champ Jeff McNeil’s batting .264, while Ronald’s little brother Luisangel has eleven stolen bases.
But this series will be won or lost by the offenses, both of which are facing two good starting rotations. Whoever can beat the other team’s strength will come out of this one on top. The numbers say that they’re evenly matched. I’m not so sure.
While the Braves are reeling from not getting the sweep against Colorado, the Mets are confident. Sure, they’ve dropped their last three (which, apparently, is just part of the visitor's welcome package in Atlanta), but they’re still playing loose, fearless baseball from their perch atop the NL East. They know who they are. Now it’s just a matter of proving it - again.
All three games have 7:15 PM ET start times and can be viewed on FanDuel Sports Network South. As always, I’ll have a postgame show over on Locked On Sports Atlanta and Today’s Three Things in your inbox shortly after.
The two clubs are roughly tied at RISP and two outs, with New York at .213 and Atlanta .212