Game 1 New York Mets vs. Los Angeles Dodgers Prediction:
The National League Championship Series between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers gets going in Los Angeles on Sunday. The Mets have most of their team rested from the three days off they got from defeating the Philadelphia Phillies in four games and will look to deploy that on Sunday.
Kodai Senga will make his third start of the season for the New York Mets and his second of the postseason. He also appeared in Game One of the divisional series against the Phillies.
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Against the Phillies, Senga hurled two innings with one run allowed before David Peterson provided three innings of scoreless relief. Though Senga will likely have the ability to go closer to three or four innings on Sunday, he will probably be piggybacked by Peterson, with perhaps normal starter Tylor Megill also helping.
Senga, Megill, and Peterson have allowed a combined two runs in 9 2/3 innings of work this postseason. They will have their hands full with a Dodgers offense scoring 5.2 runs per game but see a drop off in production at home with 4.9 runs per game between the regular season and playoffs.
The Dodgers pitching staff looks to build off a streak of 25 total innings, and 24 innings in which their opponent had at-bats, without a run allowed. Their last runs allowed came in the second inning of Game 3 of the divisional series against the San Diego Padres.
Jack Flaherty gets the Game 1 start and looks to rebound from allowing four runs in 5 1/3 innings in the team’s Game 2 loss at home against the Padres.
During the regular season, Flaherty had 10.8 strikeouts to 2.1 walks per nine innings with a 3.17 ERA between his time with both the Detroit Tigers and the Dodgers
The Dodgers back him up with a bullpen that has a 2.22 ERA in the playoffs after ranking fourth among all teams during the regular season with a 3.53 ERA.
The New York Mets 4.01 bullpen ERA this postseason is pretty representative of what they did during the regular season, ranking 17th with a 4.03 ERA in the bullpen during the regular season.
Over the past five games, 23 of the New York Mets 27 total runs of offense have come in the sixth inning or later. With the way the Dodgers bullpen has come on strong, the late-game heroics that the Mets had against the Phillies in the previous round won’t be there in this series. The result will be a low-scoring Game 1.
MLB Pick: New York Mets vs. Los Angeles Dodgers Under 8 Runs
To find more baseball value bets and MLB picks, visit Greg Peterson’s daily MLB lines.
