Giants vs. Mets Preview

Before diving into what is easily baseball's best series of the week, let's take a look around the league 👇

• Cubs rookie Seiya Suzuki mashed his way to NL Player of the Week honors with three homers and a 1.604 OPS

• Five-time MVP vote-getter José Ramirez celebrated his seven-year extension with the Guardians by hitting .478 (11-for-23) on his way to winning the AL's version of the award for the fifth time

• Shohei Ohtani righted his early season woes at the plate, homering thrice into the weekend, despite struggling through a brutal start on the bump where he surrendered a grand slam

As for today, the Mets and Giants will meet twice in Queens to kick off a series between two championship hopefuls (as of last night, lines were only available for the day game). Last year, the Giants rode resurgent seasons from aging veterans to an MLB-best 107 wins, while the Mets' disappointing campaign ended with 77 wins before the start of the postseason. Now, they're two of the only three teams with seven wins and look to be among the best bets to keep playing into October 🏆

Giants vs. Mets Day Game Betting Preview (subject to change)

• Spread: Mets -1.5 runs

• Moneyline: Mets -118, Giants +100

• O/U: 7 total runs

Defense Wins Championships

The old adage, "Defense wins championships", is never truer than when it comes to the value of elite starting pitching in baseball. With league-wide run-scoring back up to peak steroid era levels, dependable starting pitching is as scarce and valuable as ever ✊

Although the Mets' group might look better on paper, no rotation has out-pitched the Giants' starting corps. Right now, the Giants' starters lead the majors in these categories 👇

• Pitching fWAR

• FIP

• Wins

• Strikeouts

• Average fastball velocity

Carlos Rodón is making good on his offseason signing, Logan Webb is outdoing the results of his breakout campaign, and the back-end has done enough to hold their ground

Still, even with the presumptive perennial Cy Young favorite Jacob DeGrom having yet to make a single start, the Mets have had the second-best rotation in the majors by most metrics, and the best according to a few more 👇

• ERA

• xFIP

• Strikeout rate

Despite being maybe the biggest signing of the offseason, Max Scherzer has been decent, but by far the worst of the Mets' starters (3.27 ERA). Here's how the others have faired so far 👇

• Tylor Megill: 0.00 ERA in 10.1 innings

• Taijuan Walker: 0.00 ERA in 2.0 innings

• David Peterson: 0.00 ERA in 4.1 innings

• Chris Bassitt: 0.75 ERA in 12.0 innings

• Carlos Carrasco: 0.84 ERA in 10.2 innings

Incredibly, they've put together the best start to a season for a starting pitching rotation in 109 years. They'll all likely regress a bit from these unsustainably elite starts, but Megill looks like a potential breakout candidate, and Bassitt, Walker, and Carrasco have all had solid seasons in their recent history 🧢

You Can't Win If You Don't Score

While pitching may be the most important ingredient for winning baseball, it doesn't matter if you can't put numbers on the board. Just look at the Yankees -- their pitching has been among the best in baseball, but they're just 5-5 after scoring the third-fewest runs per game in baseball

The Mets are hot in general, but the club's most exciting performance has to be the resurgence of All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor. After merely average offensive performances in each of his past two seasons, Lindor has set off 2022 on a tear 👇

• His power numbers are back where they were at his peak in Cleveland

• He's walking more than ever

• He's striking out less often than he has in his entire career

The Giants lack the offensive firepower of the Mets, but they get by on a deep roster of competent role players with excellent gloves. With a pair of games today and another on each of the following two days, Mets-Giants will be a battle worth tuning-in to 📺

For My Parlay Gurus

I was really hoping for the doubleheader parlay today, but couldn't find lines for the Mets night game last night. I've got Tylor Megill out-dueling the veteran Alex Cobb in the day's first contest, and I'm adding in Garrett Cole and the other New York team (full lines here) to take care of business in Detroit 👇

• Mets moneyline vs. Giants at 3:10PM ET: -118

• Yankees -1.5 @ Tigers: -118

$100 on this bet would win you $246 — if we hit, make sure you email [email protected] for a chance to win up to $100*. Many will enter, only some will win 😉

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