Sunday Night Baseball: Mets vs. Giants
If you ask me, the biggest upset of the MLB season is that Mets vs. Giants beat out Dodgers vs. Red Sox to get the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball billing. Or even Phillies vs. Yankees. But, ESPN was able to get a New York team in the mix, as the Kings of Queens look for a sweep of the Giants and their seventh straight victory overall.
San Francisco is reeling, having lost eight of their last 10 as the Trade Deadline looms on Thursday, so a win here to salvage a game in the series would be rather big. They’ll have to overcome an underdog price to do it.
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How to Watch Mets vs. Giants
Where: ESPN
When: Sunday July 27, 7:00 p.m. ET
Mets vs. Giants MLB Odds
New York Mets -122 // San Francisco Giants +101
Total: 8 (-110/-110)
Mets vs. Giants Game Preview
It will be a bullpen day for the Giants, as Matt Gage makes his first MLB start. The 32-year-old journeyman only has 25 appearances at the MLB level, but he has only allowed four earned runs over 29.1 innings of work. He’ll have the very simple task of trying to get through Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor (who hits righties better than lefties), and Juan Soto.
After that, we’ll see how the Giants play it. All of their relief arms should be available, as nobody has pitched back-to-back days. We could see Sean Hjelle, Tristan Beck, or Carson Seymour attempt to cover multiple innings and maybe see manager Bob Melvin try to match up with one of his higher-leverage relievers or southpaw Joey Lucchesi when the top of the order rolls around again.
On the whole this season, the Giants pen is second in ERA at 3.18 and fifth in FIP at 3.58, so they’re a good unit. But, it is anybody’s guess as to how they will attempt to navigate this one in hopes of getting the ball to their primary arms with a lead.
To be honest, I was a little bit surprised to not see the Mets a bigger favorite with Kodai Senga on the hill. Senga has a 1.79 ERA in his 15 starts covering 80.2 innings. His xERA and FIP of 3.36 and 3.31, respectively, show some negative regression in the profile, but it’s not like those are bad numbers. They are just indicative of how hard it will be to keep running an 86.5% LOB% all season long. It is worth noting that Senga was a bigger favorite at open and money has hit the board on the Giants.
Senga was a little shaky in his first start after the All-Star Break, allowing four runs on four hits in just three innings against the Angels. He walked three and struck out five. High pitch count at bats have been problematic for him in terms of working deep into games, as over 35% of his plate appearances against have ended in either a strikeout or a walk.
Yesterday’s 2-1 win put the Mets’ top three relievers into action, but like San Francisco, nobody has worked back-to-back days going into tonight.
With a good starting pitcher, the better lineup, and a full complement of bullpen arms, it’s the Mets for me tonight.
Pick: Mets -122
Mets vs. Giants Player Props
Mike Yastrzemski Over 1.5 Hits + Runs + RBI (+135)
Yaz comes into this game with a .259/.369/.403 slash against right-handed pitching, which includes a 15% BB%. Obviously that doesn’t help in the hits category, but Senga has walked nearly 15% of the lefties that he has faced this season, giving Yaz the opportunity to get on base. If nothing else, it could also mean a favorable count or two for the lefty to get a hittable fastball or two.
