Aiden Cooke - New York Mets vs Washington Nationals Series Preview

 The Mets will look to shake off their rough series in Chicago as they return home to face the Washington Nationals. The Nationals predictably got off to a slow start to their season but have turned it around as of late, winning 4 of their last 6. Still, they are currently in last place in the NL East with a 7-9 record, while the Mets are tied for first, going 7-7. 

    The Mets' offensive woes continued at Wrigley Field. They managed to score only 8 runs across the three-game set and continued to squander scoring chances in key moments. Notably, they wasted a bases-loaded, 1-out opportunity down 2 runs in the 9th inning of game one and had a runner on third with no outs in extra innings in game 3 but still couldn't get the run in. The Cubs would score the winning run in the next half-inning. 

    The Nationals' offense hasn't been much better. Collectively, they are hitting .253/.317/.384 with a 90 wRC+. The best hitter in their lineup has clearly been Juan Soto, one of the premier young stars in the sport. Soto, however, was placed on the 10-day IL with a shoulder strain and will miss the entire series. 

    The next best hitter would be Trea Turner, a dynamic shortstop who has seemingly stolen a base every time he's gotten aboard against the Mets. Since 2016, Turner has the third-most swiped bags of any player in the game, trailing only Billy Hamilton and current Met Jonathon Villar. He has had one of the 5-fastest average sprint speeds in MLB every year except for 2018 when he finished 9th. Turner was an above-average hitter and good fielder but has turned his play up a notch in recent years. Since 2019, Turner is hitting .308/.364/.526 with a 130 wRC+, .374 wOBA, and 7.1 WAR, the 4th-most of any player with fewer than 200 games played over that span. 

    Victor Robles and Andrew Stevenson are both more than capable of stealing a base themselves. Stevenson has been Soto's replacement in the outfield. He has only played 154 MLB games and has been a below-average hitter, but Stevenson has performed well against the Mets, going 10-26 with 6 BBs since 2018, mostly as a pinch-hitter. Robles is an athletic player with speed but hasn't performed amazingly yet at the big-league level. He showed promise in 2019 but took a major step back in 2020, hitting .220/.293/.315. Robles put together a fantastic spring but is currently scuffling at the plate, producing just a 73 wRC+.

    The other outfielder, Kyle Schwarber, does not have much speed to his name but has shown an ability to hit for power. Schwarber came up with the Cubs back in 2015 but is still only 28 years old. From 2015-19, Schwarber played in 492 games, hitting .235/.339/.490 with a 116 wRC+ and .347 wOBA with 110 home runs (36 HR/162 games) and 255 RBIs. He struggled last year, and the Cubs non-tendered him. Washington, desperate for lineup depth, hoped he could regain his form, but so far Schwarber has been a disappointment.

    Another addition to the roster was first baseman Josh Bell, acquired from Pittsburgh. Similar to Schwarber, Bell showed promise when he first arrived in the bigs but truly broke out in the first half of 2019, when he hit .302 with 27 HRs, 69 RBIs, and a 1.024 OPS on an inept Pirates team. Bell couldn't repeat his performance in the 2nd half of the year, instead regressing to a mediocre hitter. In 2020, he had a negative WAR and wRC+ of 77 (his first time below 100, which is league average). The Nationals are hoping that Bell can recapture his form from early 2019 and be a force in the middle of the order.

    The rest of the infield has consisted of Josh Harrison at 2nd base and Starlin Castro at 3rd, two veteran utilitymen. Harrison was solid in limited action last season but has started 2021 red-hot, hitting .387.472/.548 with a measly 2.8 K% and more WAR in 9 games (0.4) than he had in 33 games in 2020 (0.3). Castro didn't provide much value in 2020 with below-average hitting and defense and has already had the exact same number of games played and PAs this year as he did last year. His skills continue to decline on both sides of the ball.

    Behind the dish, Yan Gomes has been a solid option. Offensively, he has been slightly below average, hitting .241/.318/.409, which is not bad for a catcher. Gomes does not have great framing skills, but what he does possess is a cannon of an arm. He is backed up by fellow veteran catcher Alex Avila, who has also been a decent hitter (by catching standards). 

    The opening game will see Jacob deGrom start for the Mets and Erick Fedde take the bump for the Nationals. deGrom has been his usual self so far this year, going 1-1 with a 0.45 ERA and 35 Ks in 20 IP. He's throwing his heater harder and more often than ever and it's been paying off. Fedde, on the other hand, has an unsightly 5.56 ERA but his stats are inflated from a rough first outing against the Braves, where he allowed 5 runs in 1.2 innings. Over his last two starts, though, Fedde has been outstanding, with a 1.86 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 9.2 innings, including 9 strikeouts in 5 shutdown frames in his last start. Fedde won't go deep into games but has been heating up and could pose a problem for Mets hitters.

    Game 2 will feature Marcus Stroman and Joe Ross. Stroman has had success this year by aiming for soft contact rather than strikeouts, and the results speak for themselves: an 0.89 ERA, .159 opponent BA, and 0.69 WHIP (and only 4.87 K/9). His 59.6% groundball rate is the 9th-highest out of 183 pitchers who have thrown at least 10 innings this year. The Nationals make a lot of contact, possessing the 3rd best K% and 5th best swinging strike rate of all 30 teams, so it will be key for Stroman to hit his spots and not give up a lot of hard hits. 

    After an encouraging first two seasons in the majors, Joe Ross dealt with injuries and underperformance, including Tommy John surgery in 2018. He had a hard time coming back in 2019, pitching out of the bullpen and getting subpar results, but he bounced back nicely over his final 8 starts, putting up a 2.75 ERA. After opting out of the 2020 season, he's gotten off to another tough start, allowing 10 ER, 14 hits, and 6 BB in 15.1 innings.  Ross has always done a good job of limiting hard contact, but this year he's been giving up a lot of barreled balls and strikeouts while not getting many strikeouts to counter them. His best pitch over the last few seasons has been his slider, but Ross uses his sinker as his primary pitch.

    Taijuan Walker and Patrick Corbin will match up in game 3. Walker struggled in his last outing, allowing 2 earned runs on 2 hits and 6 walks in just 3.2 innings. He did continue to rack up strikeouts, getting 7 Ks, but Taijuan will definitely need to improve his command and attack hitters in the zone if he wants to succeed this year. There were some questionable calls from the home plate umpire, causing Walker to get frustrated and eventually ejected, but most of the blame still goes to Taijuan for his poor performance. 

    Unlike Walker, Corbin had been struggling but had a tremendous outing his last time around, tossing 6 shutout innings of 4-hit ball. Still, he's allowed 15 earned runs in 12.1 innings and has also struggled with command, permitting 7 walks. Corbin struggled in 2019 as well, pitching to a 4.66 ERA, 4.17 FIP, and 4.12 xFIP. He saw a drop in velocity, which seemed like a result of the shortened season but has continued into 2021. Not only did he give up a lot more contact as a result, but he was getting hit harder, too. These definitely aren't good signs for Corbin, who will turn 32 this year and is signed through 2024 with an AAV north of $23 million. His struggles are likely due to some compromise of aging, a small sample size, and a delayed/rushed start in 2020. He shouldn't do as poorly as his 10.95 ERA might suggest, but Corbin definitely doesn't look as good as he did in 2019 when he helped the Nats to a World Series championship.

    The Mets will need to at least take 2 of 3 in this series to be above .500, and they have a good chance of doing so. On paper, the Mets are favorites in this contest and will have their top 3 starters all pitching and will not need to face Max Scherzer. Hopefully, the bats can wake up with warmer weather and the home crowd to motivate them, but they won't need to put up a ton of runs to outscore the Nationals' offense. As playing time gets more consistent, the Mets should do the same, and now would be a good time to do so facing a division rival and coming up on a tough part of the schedule.