I made a futures bet that the Mets would win more than 72 and a half games this year. When I made it the bet seemed reasonable but not sure a thing. At the all star break it seemed inevitable, even last week it seemed like a lock. The we dropped six games in a row and all of a sudden it seems like a long shot. C'mon Mets, eight more wins, we can do it. The Mets head to Milwaukee this weekend, let's see what we are up against.
Tonight the Mets take on the rookie Mike Fiers. I didn't know much about Miek Fiers until I was researching this article and it turns out he is pretty good. Why aren't we talking about Mike Fiers more? In 109 innings he has amassed a respectable 9-7 record. He has pitched a ERA/xFIP of 3.05/3.55 with a dominant k/9 of 9.14. His minor league numbers are all in line with how he has pitched so far and his arsenal contains 4 pitches, all around someone to watch and be afraid of. Why isn't this guy on my fantasy teams?
The Mets never play on Saturday afternoon. What is with that? I seriously can't remember a single 1 o'clock Saturday game all year. This week is no different. Saturday night the Mets take on Shaun Marcum. I feel like Shaun Marcum is getting no respect this year. Last year he was talked about so highly as part of a dominant Brewers rotation and now he is kind of forgotten despite having a good year (when he was healthy, he was injured for a good portion of the season.) Marcum has a 3.71 ERA and only a slightly higher 4.05 xFIP. He has struck out a good number of batters (94 over 100 innings). He does however give up a lot of homers, with a hr/9 of 1.24 which is solidly in the bottom 25 of all pitchers.
On Sunday we face Wily Perlata, who from what I can tell is not related to Johnny Peralta. Is Peralta a common name in the Dominican Republic? According to Wikipedia Peralta learned to pitch by throwing lemons. Is this a valid way to learn pitching? Lemons and baseballs are nothing alike, even less alike than apples and oranges (which are two very alike things for the record), maybe the phrase should be "that's like comparing baseballs and lemons." Probably not. Anyway Peralta is pitching in his third game ever. He pitched pretty well in the first two games but that is basically meaningless. He was a slightly above average AAA player but realistically even the terrible offense Mets should be able to get to him.
On the offensive side the Brewers feature Ryan Braun who is my favorite for an easy NL MVP win. He is currently the second best player in baseball according to fWAR (7.1) and is hitting an amazing .310/.385/.593 with 38 dingers and 23 stolen bags. Seriously, someone make a case to me that he shouldn't be the MVP.
As a team the Brewers are 72-71, they have scored 686 runs and allowed 647 runs. The Vegas series price is Mets +200.
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