Thursday night baseball and we will see the New York Mets travel west to take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in game 1 of their 4 game series from St Louis. The game is scheduled for a 9:40 (ET) pm start time and it will be televised live locally. Currently the odds have Arizona favored at -159, while New York is dogs of +149. The total for the game sits at 9 runs.
Free Analysis: New York (47-51) arrives in Arizona to open a season-high 11-game road trip after losing 5-2 to Washington on Wednesday to cap an 0-6 homestand. The Mets, who last dropped seven in a row overall in April 2011, have lost 12 of 13 to fall seven games out in the NL wild-card race. The New York Mets were initially reluctant to promote their first-round draft pick from two years ago, but desperation is setting in. The free-falling Mets are calling up highly touted Matt Harvey, hoping that in his major league debut the right-hander can help the team to its first victory in seven contests tonight vs the D-Backs. The Mets have high expectations for Harvey, the seventh overall pick in the 2010 draft, and hope one day he'll become their staff ace. The 23-year-old Harvey, who went 7-5 with a 3.68 ERA in 20 starts for the Bisons, says he will try to keep calm and not attempt to be a savior for New York. "Losing is one thing," third baseman David Wright said. "The way that we're going about it right now is unacceptable." Wright finished the homestand 4 for 24 with eight strikeouts, and New York was outscored 13-5 from the seventh inning on in its last four. New York's offense has the difficult task of facing Wade Miley (11-5, 3.02 ERA), who has permitted a single run in four of his last five starts in the desert. At home against Houston on Saturday, the left-hander gave up a run and four hits while striking out a career-high nine in seven innings of a 12-3 win to set a franchise rookie record for victories in a season. Just as Miley has been stellar at Chase Field, so has Arizona's offense - its last game notwithstanding. The Diamondbacks (49-49) were limited to five hits in Wednesday's 4-2 loss to Colorado after averaging 7.8 runs in winning their previous eight at home. Kubel leads the NL with 72 RBIs after driving in 12 while batting .343 with seven home runs in the last eight games, and Montero is hitting .400 with 11 RBIs in the last 11. Kubel, however, is hitless in 10 at-bats against the Mets this year, while Montero is 1 for 8, while David Wright, New York's leader with 67 RBIs and a .340 average, is 3 for 20 without an RBI in his last six games against Arizona.
Free Pick: 1 When the Mets have faced a lefty this year the Over is an amazing 27-5-3, with an average of 10.8 rpg being scored.On the road this year when the Mets have faced a southpaw the Over is 13-2-1, with an average of 11.40 rpg being scored in the 15 games. 12 of those 15 games put up at least 9 runs. Now what's really interesting about those numbers is the fact that the Mets don't really hit lefties that good on the road as they hit just .248 and score just 3.99 rp/9 off them. even more interesting is the fact that the Mets have allowed 6.1 rpg vs lefties this compared to allowing 4.9 rpg overall. What's interesting there that the fact that the opposing pitcher is a lefty should have no bearing at all on New York's pitching staff yet they still allow 6.1 rpg vs lefties, but 3.67 rpg when they take on a righty. Very interesting, but I will continue to ride the trend. The Mets score 5.1 rpg on the road, compared to 4 rpg at home and Arizona has averaged a healthy 5.4 rpg in this park this year. Matt Harvey gets the call up and I'm not expecting more than 5 or 6 innings from him and that then turns the ball over to a NY pen that has a 5.73 ERA on the road. Wade Miley has been solid, especially at home, where he has a 2.55 ERA and thanks to his team supporting him with 6.3 rpg at home his home starts have averaged 9.6 rpg. I expect the Mets to be able to hit him and once he is out then we will see a D-Backs pen that has a 4.13 ERA at home and that pen has allowed 20 of the 27 HR's that the pen has allowed at home. I see at least 12 runs in this one.
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