Giants-Mets Series Preview

Giants-Mets Series Preview

This is supposed to be a step back season for the Mets, and yet here they are in a bit of an April surge that’s going to give their fans hope. This is supposed to be a step forward season for the San Francisco Giants and yet here they are in a bit of an April “Well, what did you expect? The plan was always to be around .500 for most of the year and hope to get lucky at the end.” One team is a bit of a surprise, the other team is the Giants.

Both teams have a tough road ahead of them if they’re going to be serious contenders for Wild Card #3, but the Giants should, theoretically, be better situated to contend as deep into the season as possible on the strength of their starting pitching. Of course, that hasn’t quite shown up yet for them as their 4.45 starting pitcher ERA (thanks, Blake!) is 22nd in MLB, behind the Mets’ 3.91 (13th) — though, their respective FIPs are even (4.06 for Giants, 4.07 for Mets), and both rotations are valued in the lower third of the sport by fWAR (1.1).

Remarkably, Blake Snell is having a worse start to his season Spring Training than Sean Manaea did last year for the Giants when they started him in the bullpen as a bulk innings guy. Manaea opted out and signed with the Mets and has made four starts for them so far in 2024, and only one of them was a disaster. Seriously, look at this log:

4/1 vs. DET: 6 IP 1 H 0 R 2 BB 8 K

4/7 at CIN: 5 IP 3 H 1 R 2 BB 6 K

4/13 vs. KC: 3.2 IP 9 H 8 R 3 BB 4 K 1 HRA

4/19 at LAD: 5 IP 4 H 2 R 3 BB 3 K

It’s the one home run allowed in 19.2 IP that startled me. But good for Sean. He’s picking up where he left off with the Giants (4 starts, 24 IP 8 R 2 BB 18 K).

But if you’re a fan that’s inclined to root based on projects and processes rather than outcomes, then yes, the Giants will take off soon and the Mets will fade away like they always do. It might not happen in this three-game series in part because the Mets have won the last two season series in the matchup and in part because, as nice as the Giants’ rotation is right now, we can all admit it’s not fully operational outside of Logan Webb. Meanwhile, the Mets, for as much as we make fun, have a lineup that’s doing great.

Let’s just focus on Pete Alonso’s arrival in 2019. In those 5+ seasons since his debut, the Mets’ offense has measured a wRC+ of 105, 8th in MLB (791 games). The Giants are 16th in MLB at 98, and that’s less important, because just in the matchup, the Mets are outscoring the Giants 4.92 runs/game to 4.15.

The Mikes, Yastrzemski and Conforto, are off to tough starts but with two lefties on the mound, Yaz probably won’t be able to build off his promising day in yesterday’s loss while Conforto won’t get to face his old team and maybe spark a new run of success (1.117 OPS in his first 10 games, .473 in his last 11). Given that, there’s a nonzero chance we might see Heliot Ramos thrown into the mix, but otherwise, this is going to be a series that comes down to a few key things:

• Austin Slater + Tyler Fitzgerald in the corner outfield spots (or maybe a Jorge Soler start in left?) — can they hit enough?
• Can the rotation neutralize the Mets’ lineup long enough for the lineup to score runs OR
• Can the Giants get to the Mets’ bullpen?

More and more I’ve started thinking about “can the Giants get to the other team’s bullpen?” as the key to their success. That’s assuming the Giants’ rotation develops into the force it’s projected to be — which is not a given, but something we can still strongly presume to be the case when we’re in still in April. The starting pitching matchups look to be even in the sense that despite the Giants’ historical success against Jose Quintana, they’ve never faced Luis Severino before and Sean Manaea has been pretty solid against them lifetime.

The bullpen matchup could be even, too, as the Mets have had decent success against the Giants’ bullpen — particularly Tyler Rogers — and I think Landen Roupp is a wild card in this series; but, I like the idea that the Giants could eek out a lead late before handing it over to Camilo Doval. But the Giants have already been involved in 9 “blowouts” (Baseball Reference’s category for games decided by 5+ runs) and are 4-5 (outscored 61-44). The Mets have been involved in 6 (4-2, 26-24).

Series details

Who: New York Mets vs. San Francisco Giants

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California

When: Monday (6:45pm PT), Tuesday (6:45pm), Wednesday (12:45pm PT)

National broadcasts: MLB Network simulcast (Tuesday)

Projected starters

Monday: Jose Quintana vs. Keaton Winn

Tuesday: Luis Severino vs. Logan Webb

Wednesday: Sean Manaea vs. Blake Snell

Where they stand

Mets, 12-9 (3rd in NL East), 102 RS / 91 RA

Giants, 10-13 (4th in NL West), 95 RS / 116 RA

Mets to watch

Francisco Lindor: Before this past weekend against the Dodgers, Lindor was hitting .151/.259/.219 (.478) to start the season. He went 5-for-12 in LA with a double. a home run, 4 RBI and 1-for-2 in stolen bases. Did he have a great series against soft pitching or is he heating up? In 10 games at Oracle Park, he’s hitting .262/.304/.548 with 4 doubles, a triple, and a pair of homers. He has a career .809 OPS against the Giants (89 PA) in any stadium.

Pete Alonso: Over the past year or two there have been whispers and hopes that the Mets would trade their slugging first baseman, and I’m certain I’ve been one of those Giants fans thinking San Francisco would make a great landing spot for him. It’s not only because right-handed power fares better at Oracle, but also because Pete Alsono has hit better on the road in his MLB career: .261/.345/.556 (.901) in 1500+ PAs. At Oracle Park, he’s made his few hits count: .214/.274/.571 (.846) in 62 PA (14 games) with 6 home runs on 12 hits plus 20 RBI. In 27 career games against the Giants, he’s hitting .272/.350/.563 (.914) with 9 home run and 26 RBI plus a double & triple. This might be the key matchup of the series.

Jeff McNeil: Oh wait, no it’s this guy. In 17 games at Oracle Park: .349/.419/.546 (.964 OPS) with 3 home runs and 8 RBI, which all feel like clutch RBI. The Giants haven’t been able to get him out home or away as he has a career line of .352/.391/.520 in 34 games (133 PA). His 127 tOPS+ indicates — at least according to Baseball Reference — that he’s been 27% better against the Giants than his usual batting splits. He’s done better against the Orioles (187 tOPS+ in 10 games), Dbacks (139 in 18 gmaes) and Rays (139 in 8 games).

Giants to watch

Wilmer Flores: With two lefties slated to start, it’s going to be WIL-MAH time against his old, old team, against which he hasn’t done a whole lot, perhaps out of respect: .225/.286/.409 in 21 career games (77 PA). He’s been equally disappointing for the Giants this season, mustering a .250/.267/.357 in 30 PA against left-handed pitching. And this is where I’ll note that last year, Flores got off to a solid start (.769 OPS in April) before falling into despair in May, ending that month with a .699 OPS. He had a .938 OPS the rest of the season. A slow start doesn’t have to mean the end of Wilmer Flores’s career, I just hope he reconsiders the timing of his hot streaks. They don’t need to coincide with the start of a new month. How about today?

Austin Slater & Tyler Fitzgerald: I’ve been hesitant to join the chorus of people rightfully calling for Heliot Ramos and/or Luis Matos to get a call back to the major leagues only because I’m always trying to deconstruct the Giants’ processes and here’s a situation I think neatly sets us up to answer the “will they/won’t they? (barring injury)” call up either of those prospects in the coming days. If Slater and Fitzgerald get a lot of play over the next 3 games and don’t hit a lot or — in Fitzgerald’s case, hurt the team with bad defense — then I think it will be a moment for them to more strongly consider some roster adjustment, and even then, that’s really only if the series doesn’t turn out well for the Giants. I think they are committed to at least getting through the first month or so before doing anything too dramatic, and if you’re a fan who sees the team only for their projections, then that would be the sensible thing to do. This series doesn’t exactly hinge on the performance of these two, but great games from them could mean the difference in winning the series.

Blake Snell: What else can be said? He’s still in Spring Training, of course, and so we shouldn’t reasonably expect him to be good at all. We can still see all the flashes of his stuff, but he’s still 6-8 weeks away from being a major league caliber pitcher, and that’s okay. That’s by design. The Giants know they’re going to win 75 and lose 75 this season, it’s what they do with the other 12 that count, and it looks like they’ve set it up so that those 12 don’t have to be a factor until the very end of the season. Still, let’s see if he manages to not get shelled against a lineup that’s more than capable of shelling even a pitcher of his potential caliber.

Prediction time