On Monday night the Mets were on the losing end of a game that saw the first MLB pitcher to reach 19 wins this season. Tonight, they’ll try to turn the tables on the Washington Nationals and get a 19th W for one of their own.
R.A. Dickey makes his 29th start in a Cy Young caliber season tonight when the Mets host the Nationals in the second game of a three-game set at Citi Field. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. and the game can be seen on SNY or heard, as always, on WFAN 660AM. Join the conversation on Twitter by following @dailystache or yours truly, @DevOnSports.
Today marks the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the city of New York (as well as D.C. and Western Pennsylvania), so the Mets will take the field with heavy hearts. Prior to the game the Mets will wear the first responder caps that they’ve fought with MLB about for 11 years now. They will not, however, be allowed to wear them during the game.
As for the game itself, the Mets will be looking to put an end to a four-game losing streak and win for the first time since Dickey’s last start — September 5 in St. Louis. To do so they’ll have to go through Nationals starter Jordan Zimmermann in what could be a classic pitcher’s duel. Terry Collins’ lineup against the Washington righthander is predictably lefty heavy, though righty Jason Bay does get a start over lefty Lucas Duda thanks to his career success (5-for-13) against Zimmermann.
Mets Lineup:
Tejada – Murphy – Wright – Davis – Baxter – Bay – Torres – Thole – Dickey
Small Sample Stache: David Wright is 7-for-20 over a current five-game hitting streak, but only one of those seven hits has been for extra bases and each of those five games has been a Mets loss.
Nationals Lineup:
Werth – Harper – Zimmerman – LaRoche – Morse – Desmond – Espinosa – Suzuki – Zimmermann
Small Sample Stache: Since returning from an injury that kept him out nearly a month, Nats shortstop Ian Desmond is hitting .325/.358/.571 with 10 multi-hit games in his last 20 games played.
Pitching Matchup:
NYM: RA Dickey (18-4, 2.64 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 195 K) – There’s not much left to say about RA that hasn’t already been said. The man is having one of the most impressive individual seasons in baseball history. After a rough go in July, he has buckled down and allowed more than two earned runs in a game just once since July 24. And since his last loss — August 15 in Cincinnati — Dickey has allowed just four earned runs in 29.2 innings over four starts. Unbelievable.
Dickey can hit some unique milestones tonight. With five strikeouts he’ll hit the 200 strikeout plateau and if he can limit the damage he can crawl closer to a WHIP below 1.00. In addition, if the Mets can get Dickey a win, his 19 wins would match the total over his first two seasons as a Met combined. He could also become the first Met to reach 19 wins since 1990. Tonight’s start marks Dickey’s fourth against the Nationals in 2012. In the previous three he is 2-1 with a 3.05 ERA in 20.2 innings, over which he has struck out 20 against just four walks.
WSH: Jordan Zimmermann (10-8, 2.99 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 131 K) – Likewise, Jordan Zimmermann will make his fourth start of the season against the Mets tonight, looking for a fourth dominant performance against New York. Over 18 innings in those previous three starts, Zimmermann has allowed just three Mets runs on three solo homers. Mets hitters are batting just .206 against Zimmermann in 2012 with 15 strikeouts and no walks.
But Zimmermann isn’t the same pitcher he was the last time the Mets faced him on July 23rd. At the time, Zimmermann had gone at least six innings in every one of his starts, but since he’s only gotten through the sixth three times in eight starts. In those 43.1 innings his ERA has jumped from 2.28 to 2.99. he seemed to find a groove in his last start — last Thursday — tossing seven innings against the Cubs while allowing just two runs on five hits with nine strikeouts. It was a big bounce back from his previous effort, when the Cardinals rocked Zimmermann for eight runs in 3.2 innings on September 1st.
Stache Keys to the Game:
- Shut ‘Em Out – After Davey Johnson’s comments about Dickey being undeserving of the Cy Young because the Mets are a “last place team” nothing would be better than Dickey shutting them down completely.
- String it Together – One of the Mets’ biggest problems of late has been an inability to string together hits and runs. According to Elias, the Mets haven’t produced a multi-run inning at home in 106 innings! What a streak of futility. Which brings me to my final key:
- Win at Home – The Mets have won just four times at home since the All-Star Break and just 30 times all season. Is it any wonder Citi Field is a ghost town these days? Show some pride and win this one, boys!
This Date in Mets History:
On this date in 1966, MLB great Nolan Ryan made his big league debut for the Mets in the sixth inning of an 8-3 loss to Atlanta. Ryan tossed two solid innings that afternoon, including the first three of 5,714 career strikeouts, a record I don’t believe will ever be broken. Among those strikeouts was Hall-of-Famer Eddie Mathews and the lone flaw in Ryan’s outing was a one-out solo homer run in the seventh by Joe Torre. Baseball history is so cool.
