MVN - Most Valuable Network

Game 99 Open Thread: New York Mets @ Cincinnati Reds

It’s a lovely afternoon for scoreboard-watching, as the Mets could find themselves back in a tie for first place by the end of the day with a little help from the Marlins. Of course, in order for that to happen, the Mets will have to take care of business and salvage a split with the Cincinnati Reds, and they’ll have to do so against a phenomenal young pitcher.

How can a team trade Josh Hamilton and possibly get the better end of the deal? When they get Edinson Volquez in return, that’s how. Volquez has more strikeouts than innings pitched; perhaps even more impressive than that is the fact that he has allowed just five home runs in 117 2/3 innings despite pitching his home games at a park that is known for being a great place to hit home runs. Volquez’s one weakness is the free pass (he has already issued 56 walks this year), but because he does everything else so well he has allowed more than three ones just once all year. The 24-year old righty is pretty much a fastball/change-up pitcher who will throw the occasional breaking ball; the 11-MPH differential between his two primary pitches gives an idea of why he is so difficult to face.

Two months ago, a matchup of Volquez and Mike Pelfrey would have been a major mismatch; today, the edge still goes to Volquez but it’s a lot closer than even the most optimistic of us would have imagined as recently as the end of May. Just three starters with enough innings to qualify have thrown their fastball more than 80% of the time, and Pelfrey is one of them. That tendency has become even more pronounced during Pelfrey’s recent run of good starts, and the success he’s had basically throwing all fastballs gives you an idea of just how nasty that pitch is.

Argenis Reyes gets the start at second base and bats second; Carlos Delgado moves up to fifth in the order with Marlon Anderson playing left field and batting sixth, Ramon Castro catches and bats seventh, and Endy Chavez is in right field and batting eighth. If there’s a day when the Mets can endure Anderson’s “defense” in left, it’s when the lone groundball pitcher in the rotation is on the mound; similarly, I like starting the other Reyes at second behind the pitcher who most needs a strong infield defense.

Let’s Go Mets! (And just for today, Let’s Go Marlins!)

Links
MLB Gameday
Baseball-Reference Game Preview
Fangraphs Live Scoreboard

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 8:51 am and is filed under Game Thread, Edinson Volquez, Argenis Reyes, Marlon Anderson, Mike Pelfrey, New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, 7 Train. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.