First, there's the AL East leading Yankees, who sit at 40-18, best record in the AL East and one of only two teams in the Majors with 40 or more wins on the year. From an offensive standpoint, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have been killing the ball all season long. Judge leads the team with 43 RBI's and 17 home runs. He's one of five guys in the Yankees lineup who's already hit more than ten home runs on the year, along with Ginacarlo Stanton (14), Gary Sanchez (12), Didi Gregorius (11) and Gleyber Torres (10). Four of those guys have driven in more then 30 runs as well, so it shows that this is a balanced attack. pitching has been pretty good for the Yankees too. Louis Severino has turned into a bonifide ace this year. He sits at 9-1 with a 2.20 ERA and 102 strikeouts.
This is a Yankees team that's coming in having won five of their last six games and two in a row. Everybody seems to be hitting their stride at the right time. Yes Bird and Judge and Torres are sliding a little over the last week. To help make up for that, Miguel Andújar and Aaron Hicks are both hitting over .400 over the last week, Giancarlo Stanton has been delivering more over the last week with three long balls and eight driven in. The Bronx Bombers are starting to heat up at the right time.
Something that can't be said about the Boys from Queens. The Mets sit at 27-32, good for 4th in the NL East. After starting the year off at 12-2, New York has managed to win only 16 times since then, to put them in a really bad spot to be in right now. New York's best hitter at the moment is Asdrúbal Cabrera, who's hitting .286 with ten homers and 34 RBI's leading the team in all three offensive catagories. Hell, over the last week, the only Mets starter who's hitting over .200 is Jose Bautista, who's hitting .222. There's not much positive to write about with the Mets who've lost six straight and 11 of their last 13 games. In that six game streak the Mets are on, they've only scored a total of seven runs during this six game streak.
Its a battle of two teams going in the opposite direction heading into this weekend. Its a team in the Yankees who are starting to get on a roll against a team in the Mets who are slumping badly right now. Here's a look at the start times and pitching matchups for the weekend.
Friday: 7:10 p.m. (YES, SNY) Masahiro Tanaka (7-2, 4.79) vs. Jacob deGrom (4-0, 1.49)
Saturday: 7:15 p.m. (FOX) Domingo German (0-4, 5.44) vs. Steven Matz (2-4, 3.42)
Sunday: 8 p.m. (ESPN) Luis Severino (9-1, 2.20) vs. Noah Syndergaard (4-1, 3.06)
Just looking at the pitching matchups, the two best chances for the Mets to win in this series are Friday and Saturday. Tanaka is good, but deGrom has been pitching great this year. The only reason deGrom has four wins is because his offense or his defense has let him down. He either has faulty defense or no offensive support. Anytime deGrom gets a start, no matter what, the Mets still have a chance to win a game. Saturday's game features a guy who's looking for his first career win in Domingo German. He's going against a guy who's actually managed to pitch pretty well as of late in Steven Matz. So Saturday is another good chance for the Mets to get a win. Sunday, they might not get so lucky. Severino has been the Yankees equivalent of deGrom, if not better at times. Syndergaard is just coming off the DL and at times has seemed off this season, so I almost have that game as a penciled in win for Sunday for the Yankees.
No matter what the result and no matter where the teams sit in the standings, this series is always fun to watch. It won't really mean a whole lot other then temporary bragging rights for the city, but that's more about team pride than anything. I really just hope for good baseball games to watch this weekend, and maybe a little offensive life from the Mets.
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