First pitch: Thursday, 7:10 p.m. ET
Line: San Francisco -110, New York +110, Total: 7.5

The struggling New York Mets will take on one of the hotter teams in baseball when they look to avoid a sweep against the San Francisco Giants on Thursday night.

The Giants will be in a tough battle with the Dodgers all season long and they currently sit just one game behind their rivals in the division after being victorious in four of their last five games. They overcame a losing streak of five games previous to that, but are enjoying this road trip against the NL East and after taking 2-of-3 against Philadelphia, have been able to outscore the Mets 13-5 and go 2-0 in the first couple of games at Citi Field. They pounded three long balls against New York ace Matt Harvey and totaled 14 hits in the game. With his second homer in as many nights, 2B Joe Panik (.324) has continued on an amazing tear and during his current 14-game hitting streak is 24-for-59 (.407) with four HRs, 11 RBI and 12 runs scored. After the Mets tremendous start to the 2015 campaign, they came back down to earth and are just two games over the .500 mark after going 3-6 to start the month of June. Their loss on Wednesday ensured that they would lose this series and they have won just one series in their last seven attempts. Despite Wednesday’s defeat, the team should be a little happy to see the offense tally 11 hits and go 5-for-11 with RISP. C Travis d’Arnaud (.311) made his return to the team and went 1-for-4 with two runs scored and a double. The pitching matchup in this one will peg RHP Tim Lincecum (6-3, 3.29 ERA) of the Giants against LHP Jonathan Niese (3-6, 4.43 ERA) for the host New York group. The road has given San Francisco no trouble this season as they are a solid 18-12 when away from home and will take on these Mets who are 21-10 in front of their fans. Since the start of the 2013 season, the Giants hold a 10-5 record while being 7-2 when on the road against New York in that time. Trends show that San Francisco is 101-65 .608) when the total is seven to 7.5 while the Mets are 26-17 (.605) after having lost five or six of its last eight contests. The injury report has OFs Hunter Pence (Wrist) and Gregor Blanco (Concussion) remaining questionable for the Giants as 2B Daniel Murphy (Quad) and 3B David Wright (Hamstring) are on the DL for the host Mets.

Lincecum was once an elite pitcher in this game, grabbing the Cy Young Award in both 2008 and 2009, but fell off in a big way after the 2011 season and has seen both his velocity and strikeout rate drop in successive years. He’s still managed to get double-digit victories in each of the past seven seasons, and is on pace to do so once again despite an average fastball coming in at 87.5 MPH and a career-low mark of 7.0 K/9. He has also walked quite a few batters (4.0 BB/9) and managed to leave 79.4% of runners on base, a number likely to rise with so many balls put in play. His last three starts have not been all too impressive, giving up at least four earned, going six or fewer innings pitched each time with a 13:7 K/BB ratio and five homers allowed. He’ll hope to rebound against this Mets group which he has gone 6-1 (7-4 team record) with 2.88 ERA (1.28 WHIP) against in his career. OF Michael Cuddyer (7-for-18, 4 doubles, 1 HR, 4 RBI) could cause some issues for Lincecum while OF Curtis Granderson is just 2-for-9 in the matchup but has left the yard with each of his hits. The Giants bullpen has gone 7-5 with a 3.41 ERA (1.26 WHIP) and have successfully saved 19-of-22 (86%) games. Santiago Casilla (2.49 ERA, 18 saves) has three blown saves on the year with a solid 26:11 K/BB ratio over 25.1 frames.

Niese is certainly an overlooked arm amongst the hard-throwing youngsters that the Mets have, but he had posted a sub-3.75 ERA in each of the past three seasons while keeping it on the ground at least 48% of the time. His ERA has bloated to 4.43 this year due to his eight homers allowed in 63 innings (1.14 HR/9) despite keeping the ball on the ground a career-high 53.5% of the time. New York has now lost in seven of his past eight starts as he has given up at least four runs in five of those outings and has gone at least six innings just once in his past four times on the mound. Overall when facing San Francisco in his career, Niese is 1-3 (1-5 team record) with a 2.57 ERA (1.12 WHIP) and has had a quality start in his last three meetings with them. Both 1B Buster Posey (7-for-19, 2 doubles, 1 HR, 2 RBI) and SS Brandon Crawford (4-for-9, 1 triple, three RBI) have done well against the lefty while OFs Hunter Pence and Angel Pagan have combined to go a putrid 5-for-44 (.114) with 10 strikeouts. The relievers for New York have gone 5-4 with a 2.71 ERA (1.11 WHIP) and are 19-for-23 (83%) in save opportunities. Jeurys Familia (1.30 ERA, 17 saves) has been huge in his last six outings (8.1 IP) with no runs allowed on five hits and a 10:3 K/BB ratio.