The San Francisco Giants and New York Mets will meet in the National League wildcard game Wednesday night with the winner moving on to play the Chicago Cubs.
PLAYERS TO WATCH:
- Madison Bumgarner owns a 2.14 ERA in 88 1/3 playoff innings and is no stranger to jump-starting a playoff run. In the 2014 wild-card game Bumgarner threw a complete-game shutout with 10 strikeouts against the Pittsburgh Pirates to send San Francisco to the Division Series and ultimately a World Series title over the Kansas City Royals. He is 4-0 with a 0.62 ERA in 29 career innings at Citi Field.
- Noah Syndergaard finished the regular season ranked slightly ahead of Bumgarner with a 2.60 ERA, good for third-best in MLB. “Thor” has also held current Giants hitters to a .176/.250/.235 slash line over his career.
- Daniel Murphy was the Mets' postseason hero last season as the club reached the World Series. This year, another left-handed bat is getting hot down the stretch: Asdrubal Cabrera. The infielder is batting batting .345 with 22 extra-base hits, 29 RBIs and 23 runs scored in 40 games since coming off the disabled list Aug. 19.
THE NUMBERS:
- The Giants are 0-62 this season when trailing after eight innings and have lost a franchise-record nine games in which they led entering the ninth inning — with five of those setbacks coming in September.
- Don't be surprised if their bullpen allows a home run to the Mets. New York has scored 51.1 percent of its 671 total runs via home runs this season, the highest percentage of team runs scored on homers in NL history, according to MLB.com .
- On the flip side, the Mets' bullpen has allowed just four runs in its last 30 2/3 innings (1.17 ERA) dating to Sept. 23.
1 comment:
Where is Barry Bonds when you need him?
Barry Bonds = World Series Championship.
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