The New York Mets and New York Yankees, each of whom can stand to get a sweep to sustain their Wild Card hopes, meet this week in their annual Subway Series. Each team is listed at -110 on the moneyline at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com for Monday’s opener.
The Mets come into the four-game split series – Monday and Tuesday at Citi Field, then a move to the Bronx for Wednesday and Thursday – with slightly more forward momentum than the Yankees, although that says little.
The Mets are just 7-9 since the All-Star Break, but they weren’t sellers at the non-waiver trade deadline like the Yankees, who off-loaded two-thirds of the front of their bullpen by trading Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs and flipping Andrew Miller to the Cleveland Indians for prospects.
The Yankees, who will not face Mets ace Noah Syndergaard this week, have won 11 of the teams’ last 20 matchups according to the OddsShark MLB Database. The total has gone over nine times.
The Mets have fifth starter Logan Verrett against veteran Yankees LHP CC Sabathia in the pitching matchup for Monday. Verrett has been in his element in his home ballpark, with a 3.29 ERA at Citi compared to an ugly 5.00 on the road. The Mets are 2-3 in Verrett’s home starts, but two of the losses came against aces Max Scherzer and Adam Wainwright.
Sabathia’s teams are 5-5 in his last 10 road starts in August. The Mets are 13-13 against lefty starters.
All-star right-hander Jacob deGrom, who works for the Mets on Tuesday, has limited hitters to a .589 OPS (on-base-plus-slugging) in his 10 home starts. However, Yankees RHP Masahiro Tanaka has been an excellent road starter, with a 1.94 ERA and a .566 OPS allowed. Tanaka has a 1.20 ERA in two career starts against the Mets.
The Mets are slated to start LHP Steven Matz at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. The Mets are 3-7 in Matz’s last 10 starts, and the total has gone under eight times. However, the Yankees are 14-19 against lefty starters.
Inconsistent Ivan Nova is scheduled to start for the Yankees. Nova has pitched one-run ball in three of his last five starts, but he has allowed nine home runs and issued 16 bases on balls in 52.2 innings at the Stadium this season. That combination can be lethal for a pitcher.
In the finale on Thursday, the Mets’ ageless RHP Bartolo Colon will return to one of his former home parks. One pattern of note with Colon is that the total has gone over in nine of his last 10 road starts in August. His teams are 5-5 in those matchups.
The Yankees’ Nathan Eovaldi has had a run of three decent starts since going back in the rotation, but his ratio of just 11 strikeouts against six walks over his last 18 innings is not a good omen.
Interleague play has been relatively kind to the Mets. They are 6-4; the Yankees are 5-8.
