MLB Baseball Preview: New York Mets at Los Angeles Dodgers
Two of the surprise teams of the second half of the MLB baseball season face off at Chavez Ravine on Tuesday night as the New York Mets take on the Los Angeles Dodgers. By now everyone knows about how the Dodgers went through the first couple of months of the season as one of the biggest underachievers in baseball before catching fire in the weeks before the All Star Break. Since the first of July the Dodgers have put up an astounding 30-11 record and have shown little sign of cooling off. The Mets, meanwhile, are somewhat ‘under the radar’ but have been playing excellent baseball-and particularly considering that the team was dismissed as a laughing stock before the start of the 2013 season. New York has won 5 of their last 7 games and are giving the slumping Washington Nationals a run for the second place spot in the NL East.
The Mets will start their ace in this game, righthander Matt Harvey. Harvey has been very good this year posting a 2.09 ERA overall and a 2.44 ERA on the road. Unfortunately, he’s not always received help from his teammates-the Mets are 13-10 -3.2 units in Harvey’s starts overall and 6-4 -0.4 units in his road starts. His most recent outings have been excellent with a 1.19 ERA and a 0.662 WHIP in his last three starts but there’s only one problem: the Mets managed to lose two of those games.
The Dodgers will send talented lefthander Hyun-Jin Ryu to the mound and he’s also put up strong numbers this season with a 2.99 ERA overall and a 1.83 ERA at home. More importantly, the Dodgers have won when he takes the hill taking 16 of his 22 starts overall and 8 of his 10 home starts. They’ve also won his last three starts during which Ryu put up exceptionally strong numbers with a 1.40 ERA and a 0.983 WHIP.
Nothing but respect for Harvey but the Mets look overvalued here as small dogs against a Dodgers team that is winning on an almost nightly basis. Ryu’s numbers are just as good as Harvey’s so we’d rather lay a small home chalk price and get the better overall team.
BET LOS ANGELES DODGERS (RYU) -120 OVER NEW YORK METS (HARVEY)