The New York Mets are in Washington to play the Nationals in a battle of bottom-dwelling teams.
The New York Mets start their final series of the season on Friday night against the Washington Nationals, and the opponent this weekend is completely appropriate. The Nationals are the team just above the Mets in the NL East standings, and the Mets could escape from the basement with a series sweep.
It’s been a bad year for both teams. The Mets got off to an awful start and dug a deep hole they couldn’t escape, and things got so bad that they wound up conducting a fire sale at the trade deadline. They’ve rebounded in the second half to play solid baseball, but no one knows if any of this is going to translate into a team that’s capable of contending next year.
The Nationals’ season has been the opposite of that in many ways. Washington played good baseball early, especially offensively, and they looked like contenders in June. But the Nats flattened out then turned awful, and they’re playing out the string just like the Mets.
Washington leads the Mets by two games coming into the series, but New York hasn’t designated a starter. Nolan McLean and Zac Thornton submitted their final starts of the season against the Texas Rangers, and the Mets won two of three in their series in Texas this week as they did a solid job of playing spoilers.
Going with an opener isn’t necessarily a bad thing with the Mets, however. Their bullpen has been a major strength all season, surprisingly so in the second half given that the Mets traded most of the bullpen at the deadline.
But the relievers have continued to perform well. The big names have been left-hander Nate Lavender, who’s definitely a keeper for next year, and Dedniel Nunez has pitched well along with Daniel Duarte, although Duarte has been on the shelf since Sept. 16 with a hamstring strain.
Washington will go with Andrew Alvarez, who has been good this year and excellent of late. His overall ERA is 3.17, and Alvarez comes into this game with a scoreless streak of 13 innings over his last two starts.
Offensively, the big thing to watch for is Francisco Lindor, who’s been stuck at 299 home runs for a while now. Lindor has also been affected by the number, as he’s been slumping for a while now, and as of Thursday’s loss to the Texas Rangers his average was down to .225 with an OBP of just .308.
