Excitements abounds as the Mets take on the Nationals in the rubber game of a three game series today at 1:10 PM at Citi Field. Johan Santana returns to the mound after pitching five shutout innings in his first start of the seasons. Opposing him will be Nationals superstar-in-the making Stephen Strasburg, who, despite missing all of last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery, is one of baseball’s most electrifying players.
Looming large for the Mets is the broken pinky finger suffered by David Wright on Monday. It’s unclear right now whether Wright will have to visit the disabled list, but he’ll at least miss today’s game and possibly more games after that. After a 4-0 start, the Mets offense appeared to hit a snag yesterday with Wright out of the lineup. Putting some runs on the board against a pitcher as skilled as Strasburg would be a great way to renew fan optimism.
Mets lineup
1. Ruben Tejada, SS
2. Daniel Murphy, 2B
3. Lucas Duda, RF
4. Ike Davis, 1B
5. Jason Bay, LF
6. Josh Thole, C
7. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, CF
8. Ronny Cedeno, 3B
9. Johan Santana, LHP
Washington Nationals (projected) lineup
1. Ian Desmond, SS
2. Danny Espinosa, 2B
3. Ryan Zimmerman, 3B
4. Jayson Werth, CF
5. Mark DeRosa, LF
6. Adam LaRoche, 1B
7. Xavier Nady, RF
8. Jesus Flores, C
9. Stephen Strasburg, RHP
Pitching Match-up
Mets: Johan Santana (0-0, 0.00 ERA, 0.80 WHIP)
The Mets lineup looks a lot less threatening than in did last Thursday now that Wright is out and Davis is still looking for his first hit. That means the Mets will need Ronny Cedeno to get three more hits or they’ll need Santana to have a good game in order to win today. Cedeno’s career on-base percentage is below .300, so I’m counting on Santana big time today. In his last start, the Mets ace only threw 84 pitches, but was that because the Mets are babying him after his surgery, or because he had just walked the opposing pitcher? It was probably a little of both, but either way, it would be great if Santana could go at least 6 innings deep this afternoon.
Nationals: Stephen Strasburg (0-0, 1.29 ERA, 0.86 WHIP)
Strasburg is an incredible talent with seemingly limitless potential, and he’s already started to realize some of it. In his first big league start, back in 2010, he had a mind-numbing 14 strikeouts. However, this being his first season since his 2011 Tommy John surgery, the Nationals are certain to limit his pitch counts in 2012. In Strasburg’s season debut last week, he struck out 5 Cubs in 7 innings, but left after just 82 pitches. Strasburg was lifted for a pinch-hitter while the Nats were facing a 1-0 deficit, so it’s unclear if manager Davey Johnson would have allowed him to go longer with a lead. Hopefully we won’t have to find out today.
Stache Keys to the Game
- With Strasburg on a limited pitch count, the Mets would do well to bear down and work the count to make him throw more pitches. They’ve been pretty good at this so far in the season. The more pitches Strasburg throws, the better
- In the opener, Strasburg threw a lot of fastballs early, so if the Mets decide to get aggressive, it should be before Strasburg gets comfortable with his nasty breaking ball.
- Last night, Terry Collins used only Bobby Parnell and Miguel Batista out of the bullpen. If this game turns into a battle of relief pitches, Collins should be able to outlast Johnson. That’s one more reason for the Mets to take as many pitches as they can today.
