Mets Preview

What should I be doing right now? Packing. What am I doing instead? Writing a preview for the weekend series in New York against the historically and hilariously desperate Mets.

I move to Virginia in about 24 hours. I currently have an empty dresser, empty drawers, and a few empty shelves packed to go down there. That only leaves me with EVERYTHING ELSE I OWN to pack in under a day. And, preferably, I can have all of that done by 5:00 tonight so I can actually do something with my last night in Pennsylvania. And do you remember how much I hate packing just for a weekend trip? Well, this is for the foreseeable future. Yikes. For all of you Yahoo! Pool enthusiasts out there, I have 2 letters for myself. G L

So, rather than worrying about the hell that I will be experiencing for the next undisclosed amount of hours, I will focus on the Phillies and the start of their post-All-Star-break run to another World Series title. Step one: the New York Mets.

We are currently 6-3 against the Mets this season, and we've scored double-digit runs in 3 of those games. That is a good sign for a team that has often had a tough time getting an offense going, to say the least. Here's a look at what our lineup should look like over the weekend, along with how they've fared against the Mets this season.

Rollins - .306, 6 stolen bases, .409 OBP (for Jimmy?!)
Polanco (hopefully) - .333, 3 2B, 13 RBI
Utley - .429, 1.127 OPS (has only played one series against them)
Howard - .273, 3 HR, 11 RBI, 1.005 OPS
Ibanez - .219, 2 HR, 1 hit-by-pitch (hopefully another one this series, breaking his hip)
Brown - .714, 1.571 OPS (once again, in only one series against them)
Mayberry - .273 (not much to speak of for John against the Mets)
Ruiz - .154 (yikes, really bad here)

As you can see, most guys have been pretty successful against them. If Polanco can't play, we will more than likely put Valdez in his place, and there's not at all a drop off there in terms of success against the Mets. Valdez is hitting .389 with a .921 OPS against them. As a team, we are hitting just .250 this season. Against the Mets, we have a .291 average (although that average does not include pitchers batting, which would surely bring that average down a few points).

There is a bad side to all of this, though, and that is the fact that Halladay and Lee will probably not be starting in this series. This season against the Mets, they have pitched 23 innings over 3 games, compiling a 2-0 record and 0.78 ERA. Still, we average almost 2 more runs per game than the Mets in our season series, and a few non-ideal pitching matchups should not take away from our dominance of them.

This series may also be a good indicator of the rest of the season for the Mets. They recently traded closer Francisco Rodriguez to the Brewers, mostly because they could not afford to have him close for them the rest of the season (he had something in his contract saying if he finished a certain amount of games this season, they would have to pay him 17.5 million next season. Hilarious). Some people, though, think this is a start of a complete overhaul of their roster possibly. Carlos Beltran is one person who has been mentioned a lot in trade rumors, including ones that could possibly send him to Philly (interdivisional trades are rare, though). If the Mets can take 2 out of 3 or even sweep, they may feel much more optimistic and actually become buyers at the deadline. If we take the series, it will be another step toward trading their good players come July 31. That's just a fun underlying story line in what will hopefully be another series win for us.

Game 1: Vance Worley (4-1, 2.20 ERA) vs. R.A. Dickey (4-7, 3.61 ERA)
Worley has been great lately, going 2-0 with a 0.45 ERA in his last 3 starts. His only real struggles this season, including his only loss, have come against the Mets. His first start saw him pitch 6 shutout innings, but his second had him leave after just 3 innings, giving up 12 hits and 8 runs. Does this mean that Worley is going to struggle when seeing teams a second, and now third, time around? Or was that one game just a fluke game in which he imploded? I am hoping it's the latter, but I think this game will be a great test of that, showing us what he will be capable of as the season progresses. R.A. Dickey has managed to miss the Phillies in each of our 9 games this season, and he has pretty good career numbers against us (2-2, 2.25 ERA). Dickey also shares my birthday. His last name is also Dickey. OK, wait a second, and let me talk a little bit about this guy's name. R.A.? Seriously? So we can just make any initials into a first name? I thought that was reserved for D.J. and A.J. and basically anything with a "J" as the second letter. But I feel I've seen nearly every letter combination you could ever think possible (ok, not really). But here are a few: F.P., R.P., A.Q., E.Z., J.A., J.D., A.C., C.T., T.S, C.C., D.L., E.B., Y.A., I.M., J.B., W.C., R.T., J.R., K.T., P.T., R.C., and D.W. All right, so D.W. is actually just what Launchpad McQuack used to call Darkwing Duck, so that one doesn't count. But the rest are real, I swear. What is up with that? It does not in any way feel natural to walk up to someone and say, "Hey, what's up Y.A.?" Especially when the guy's last name is Tittle! Which brings us back to R.A. Dickey. He's a knuckleball pitcher, and it would seem to me that that means we are either going to have a very hard time figuring him out or else we'll be able to get on him often and score a bunch of runs. I honestly am not sure which way to go with this game because of how hit-or-miss I think both pitchers could possibly be. Because of that, I'm going to say that the better team gets off to a better start to the second "half" of the season.
Prediction: Phillies 6 Mets 4
Keep an eye out for: I don't even know. I just spent so much time thinking about initials as first names that I can't think straight about this game. Go Phils?

Game 2: Cole Hamels (11-4, 2.32 ERA) vs. Jon Niese (8-7, 3.88 ERA)
Don't let Hamels' numbers against the Mets this season fool you. Much of his 7.45 ERA was acquired in his 6-run, 2.2-inning start to the season. His other start against them was a 7-inning, 2-run, 10-strikeout gem in a 5-2 win. Niese has actually gone the opposite way of most pitchers against the Phillies. The first time he faced us this season, he gave up 6 in 4 innings of an 11-0 loss. He has since pitched 12.2 innings and given up just 2 earned runs. The fact that he hasn't gone more than 6.1 against us, even in good starts, is a good sign. The Mets bullpen, now lacking K-Rod, has a 6.55 ERA against us this season, giving up 26 total runs in just 33 innings. Between Hamels' success ever since that first start and our tendency to work the count against Niese (122 pitches in 6.1 in his last start against us), I think we have quite an advantage in this game. And, really, any game that Hamels pitches at this point.
Prediction: Phillies 4 Mets 2
Keep an eye out for: all of those runs coming after the 6th inning

Game 3: Kyle Kendrick (4-4, 3.58 ERA) vs. Mike Pelfrey (5-8, 4.55 ERA)
Kendrick has yet to start against the Mets this season, but, in 3 appearances, he has pitched at least 2.1 innings each time, compiling a 2.16 ERA. He will want to look out for Beltran, though, who has a .316 average against him with a home run. I don't know why the Mets bother throwing Pelfrey against us, seeing as they are 0-3 when he starts. Although he was solid in his last start against us, I think we ride the momentum from our first 2 games and take the sweep at Citi Field. Also, Howard and Utley love taking this guy deep, combining for 7 home runs against him. Also, the Mets suck.
Prediction: Phillies 7 Mets 3
Keep an eye out for: Utley hitting a ball into "Utley's Corner," the unofficial name for that right field corner of the stands where he's been known to hit his fair share of homers since the park opened up. Between his 5 career home runs there and 4 against Pelfrey (and .313 average against him), I expect some serious power coming from Baseball.