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Mets and Cubs meet in Chicago Wednesday
By: Freddy Wander - StatFox
Published: 5/13/2015  at  9:08:00 AM
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NEW YORK METS (20-13)

at CHICAGO CUBS (17-15)

First pitch: Wednesday, 8:05 p.m. ET
Line: New York -115, Chicago +105, Total: 8

Two of the fastest rising teams in the National League, the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs, meet for the third of four games at Wrigley Field.

The Mets started the year at a torrid pace, winning 13 of their first 16 games, but have gone a very mediocre 7-10 since that point. They had won four of their past five games coming into this series, though, but once again have hit a road block after failing to grab a victory in either of the first two contests against Chicago. New York scored a mere four runs over those games and failed to do anything offensively in the 6-1 loss on Tuesday night. They had a meager five hits and struck out 12 times while going 0-for-3 with RISP. Two of those hits came off the bat of 2B Daniel Murphy (.233), who after a horrible start to the year now has hits in seven of his past 10 outings in which he is 12-for-39 (.308) with four RBI. On the other side of the diamond, the Mets are dealing with a Cubs group which has the brightest young core of players in the majors as each of their stud infielders is 25 or younger and has led them to a rare winning record in the early going. May hasn’t been that great, though, with a record of 5-7 as they look to continue winning against this New York team. They’ve muscled out victories in the first two games of this series, scoring a total of 10 runs while hitting two balls out of the park in each win. One of those homers came from 3B Kris Bryant (.276) in each game, with the four-bagger on Monday being the first of his promising career, and he now has nine RBI and six runs in the past eight contests. Getting the call to start in this game will be RHP Matt Harvey (5-1, 2.72 ERA) of the Mets as he goes up against RHP Jason Hammel (3-1, 3.52 ERA) for the host Cubs. The road has not brought any success to New York as the loss on Monday dropped their record away from home to 7-10 and it could get worse as Chicago is now 9-7 in its historic stadium. It’s no surprise that the Cubbies have gotten the best of the Mets in this series so far as they are 10-5 against them since the start of 2013 and have won 6-of-8 games when at home in that time. Trends show that New York is an impressive 14-3 (.824) as a favorite of -110 or more this year while Hammel’s teams are 5-2 when he pitches against NL East teams in the past three seasons. Still missing for the Metropolitans is 3B David Wright (Hamstring) as Chicago is just missing two role players; 3B Mike Olt (Wrist) and 2B Tommy La Stella (Ribs).

Harvey has returned from elbow surgery nearly as dominant as when he first came to the big leagues and has had a quality start in five of his six starts on the year. In those outings he has struck out 38 batters (8.6 K/9) and has shown amazing control (1.1 BB/9) as the young righty has left 81.4% of runners on base. He can consistently get batters to swing at balls out of the strike zone with 35.1% of his out of the zone pitches being swung at as hitters make contact in a mere 58.2% of those attempts. Harvey has just one start under his belt against this Cubs team and it came back in 2013 when he went 7.1 strong innings, allowing two runs on five hits as he struck out six (0 walks). Even though it is a limited sample, some of the offensive players for Chicago have done well in the matchup with OF Chris Coughlan (3-for-5, 1 double, 2 RBI) and SS Starlin Castro (2-for-3) each having multiple hits. On the other hand, OF Dexter Fowler (1-for-6) has struggled against the New York ace. The Mets ‘pen has been great thus far, going 3-2 with a 2.41 ERA (0.96 WHIP) and have successfully saved 15-of-16 games (94%). Getting those saves has been Jeurys Familia (1.59 ERA, 13 saves), who’s compiled a 20:3 K/BB ratio with eight hits allowed in 17 innings on the mound.

Although Hammel is one of the older players in Chicago’s clubhouse at 32-years-old, he has looked like a younger version of himself while striking out 8.2 batters per nine innings and is on pace to sport a sub-3.75 ERA for the third time in four seasons. His big improvement this year has been control as he has walked a miniscule 1.2 batters per nine innings, close to a walk less per nine than his previous career-high. He should be running hot as he comes off a great performance in Milwaukee last week where he earned a win after throwing seven innings of five-hit, two run ball in which he struck out eight (3 walks). In his career against the Mets, Hammel has struggled, going 0-3 (1-3 team record) with a 6.33 ERA (1.50 WHIP) and despite pitching at least six innings in each of his past three meetings with them, he’s allowed at least six hits with four runs each time. OF Curtis Granderson has gotten to him in the past, going 6-for-17 (.353) with two doubles, two HRs and three RBI as he’s joined by 2B Daniel Murphy (4-for-8, 1 double) who’s also been great in the matchup. No other player on the New York squad, who is active, has more than three at-bats against the veteran. The bullpen for the Cubs has let them down, going 5-6 with a 4.42 ERA (1.32 WHIP) and is a poor 7-for-13 (54%) in save opportunities. Hector Rondon (3.21 ERA, 7 saves) has not blown a save in his past five attempts but does have a poor 1.36 WHIP on the year.


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