NLWC Prediction - San Francisco Giants v New York Mets
San Francisco Giants v New York Mets
Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports
The NLWC game will be fought between the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets. These are two teams that have shown great runs in the postseason in the past few years and neither of these teams want to go home early. This Wild Card game will be a little bit uncomfortable to watch because both of these teams should be playing in the NLDS. The Mets went to the World Series last year and the Giants played such a great first half of the year and should really have not been in the NLWC game at all. Now that both of these teams will be eyeing a spot in the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs, this game will be decided on the mound. Neither of these teams are offensive powerhouses, but both share a crop of great starting pitchers.
The Giants will start Madison Bumgarner and the Mets will start Noah Syndergaard, two of the best starting pitchers in the National League. Bumgarner has an ERA of 2.74 with a WHIP of 1.02 and Syndergaard has an ERA of 2.60 and a WHIP of 1.15. Not only do they share very similar ERAs and WHIPs, they both have almost the same record, Bumgarner is 15 – 9, while, Syndergaard is 14 – 9. But that’s not even all of it, they are also both on teams with somewhat questionable offensives which have plagued both teams in the regular season. This game will be a great pitching duel to watch because of how great each player is, but it will be more interesting to watch if any player from either team can get a score on either of these two pitchers. Both pitchers will probably go far into the game and that is when the game will open up. The relief pitching for the Mets is much better than the Giants, but I wouldn’t count out the Giants because of the Mets’ relief pitching. The Giants will hope that Bumgarner can go for a CG, because if he doesn’t, they will most likely lose this game. If it isn’t clear by now, the Giants relief pitching is atrocious.
Even though this game will be decided on the mound, that doesn’t mean that we might not see some unexpected offensive brilliance. There are some notable hitters on each team, Jay Bruce and Yoenis Cespedes for the Mets and Hunter Pence and Buster Posey for the Giants. I don’t think this game will rack up a bunch of runs, but one of these players could go yard or make a play that decides the game. Then there are the unknown players that could turn up in this game and give either side a headache. Players like Gavin Cecchini or Brandon Nimmo for the Mets and potentially Trevor Brown for the Giants. Again, this game will not be decided by the offense, but rather, the ability for each pitcher to keep it to a low scoring game.
Then there are factors like home field advantage and other immeasurable things that could play into this game that could decide the result. This game will be played at Citi Field, where the Mets were 44 – 37 in the regular season. The Giants in comparison on the road were 42 – 39 on the road. These two teams played one series together at Citi Field and the Mets took the series 2/3. In these three games, the only game that the Giants had one was the one where Bumgarner faced off against Syndergaard and won 6 – 1. This result seems 50/50 on its relevancy because this game was played during the first half of the season when the Giants were one of the top teams in the league and a lot has changed since then, but it could be relevant in the sense that the matchups will be the same in the NLWC game.
This game will be very close, but I think that the Mets will edge the Giants late in the game because Bumgarner won’t be able to get a CG and the relief pitching will give up a run or two to the Mets. But the Giants are still one of the best, if not the best playoff team as of late, so they could easily get a victory as well.
Final Prediction of San Francisco Giants v New York Mets (NLWC): 2 – 3
