Here are five things to watch out for while Mets and San Francisco Giants play a three-game series at Citi Field starting Friday night…
The Third Base Situation
No surprise, Carlos Mendoza hasn’t made any proclamations about who the regular third baseman is at the moment, but it’s pretty easy to decipher. And the answer is Marcos Vientos.
Vientos started the last two games in Cleveland Brett Baty – each coming with a right-handed starter on the mound for the Guardians.
And in those games, Vientos continued to crush, going 3-for-7 with a deep home run to center field and a double down the left field line. In 31 appearances across nine big league games this season, Vientos has been strong offensively, slashing .357/.419/.714.
It’s possible that Vientos doesn’t have the defensive talent to be a long-term starter at third base, but he deserves a good look to see what he can do with the bat — whatever his long-term position.
As far as Baty is concerned, while he has drastically improved his defense at third base after working hard on it during the offseason, things just aren’t working for him at the plate.
He’s hitting the ball on the ground too much, striking out too often and hasn’t been able to generate much power — with just six extra-base hits in 150 games this season. By comparison, Vientos has six extra-base hits in 31 games.
Diaz hasn’t been himself since May 13, when he allowed two runs to the Phillies at Citi Field. He botched the defense in his next start — on May 16 against the Phils in Philadelphia — and then had one of his worst games as a Met on May 18.
Against the Marlins in the 18th, Diaz allowed four runs on four hits in just a third of an inning while blowing a 9-5 ninth inning lead in an eventual Mets defeat.
Speaking after the game, Diaz said he was dealing with a confidence issue.
“I feel like my confidence is low right now,” he said. “I’m making shots, I’m throwing shots, I’m trying to do my best to help the team win. Right now, I’m not in that capacity.”
In his first season after a devastating knee injury that required surgery, Diaz never quite looked like himself. And he has struggled with his fastball, which he sometimes uses sparingly.
Diaz hasn’t pitched since his disastrous outing in the 18th, and Mendoza said the closer’s role is fluid — meaning it’s fair to expect Diaz’s next start to be in a no-defense situation.
After two strong outings to start his major league career, Scott struggled against the Marlins last Friday in Miami, allowing four runs on seven hits while walking one and striking out three.
In that game against Miami, there were seven balls hit hard against him – the same number of balls that were hit well when he limited the Atlanta Braves to three runs in six innings on May 11.
By comparison, Rays hitters hit just three hard balls during Scott’s big league debut, when he fired a dominant 6.2 frames.
Looking at Scott’s advanced numbers via Baseball Savant, he is above average for elite in every category except average exit velocity (45th percentile) and ground ball rate (17th percentile).
Scott’s xERA (3.14) is more than a full run lower than his 4.32 ERA. And he has has been excellent when it comes to chase percentage, whiff percentage, walk rate and barrel rate.
If it feels like I’ve already written a few times about whether this is Lindor’s escape, that’s because I have.
But every time this season it seemed like Lindor had slipped out of the grip of his season-long offensive fear, things got worse again.
And now?
Lindor has multi-hit games in three of his last four, including a pair of doubles on Wednesday in Cleveland. These duos were hit at 106.5 and 101.4 mph.
Even a handful of Lindor’s outings in Cleveland were smoked, including one at 104.4 mph, one at 101 mph and another at 95.2 mph.
And although it is indisputable that Lindor had a very difficult first few months, It is also indisputable that he was unlucky with the balls he put into play. This seems to be starting to balance out.
The Giants are hot – and mostly healthy
With a 7-3 record over their last seven games, the Giants improve to 24-26 and are firmly in the playoff race.
And besides an injury Jung Hoo Leethey are healthy.
Jorge Soler is back after a two-week absence earlier this month, as is the young catcher Patrick Bailey.
In terms of pitching, the Giants also managed Blake Snell back, but he has struggled mightily (11.40 ERA and 2.07 WHIP in four starts) and will miss the Mets’ series since pitching on Wednesday.
Kyle Harrison, Jordan HicksIt is Logan Webb are lined up to face the Mets this weekend.
