{"id":12215,"date":"2016-05-17T11:36:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T15:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=12215"},"modified":"2016-05-17T11:36:46","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T15:36:46","slug":"mets-vs-nats-first-big-showdown-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=12215","title":{"rendered":"Mets vs Nats: first big showdown of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_7232\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarveyMatt-071013-via-cbssports.com_.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7232\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7232\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7232\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarveyMatt-071013-via-cbssports.com_-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Will Harvey show up for his marquee matchup on thursday? Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarveyMatt-071013-via-cbssports.com_-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarveyMatt-071013-via-cbssports.com_.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7232\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will Harvey show up for his marquee matchup on thursday? Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The first 6 weeks of the season have just been warm-up for this series.\u00a0 Its time for the rubber to hit the road.\u00a0 Time to see what&#8217;s what.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s right; its Mets and Nationals to see who takes round 1 in the battle for the 2016 NL East title.<\/p>\n<p>(yes I know the Phillies are somehow in 2nd place, and the Marlins are frisky.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t buy it; they&#8217;re not going to outlast their two divisional rivals that are built for 2016 playoff runs.\u00a0 Because neither of those teams will spend a dime mid-season to improve and their kids will wilt in August).<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the pitching match-ups (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/news\/probable_pitchers\/index.jsp?c_id=was\">probables here for the week<\/a>)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tuesday 5\/17\/16: <strong>Max Scherzer<\/strong> versus <strong>Noah Snydergaard<\/strong>.\u00a0 Wow; power versus power.\u00a0 Scherzer fresh off a 20-k performance; Thor with his slider that he&#8217;s run up to 94 (!!) and his 101 peak fastball.\u00a0 Washington&#8217;s hitters havn&#8217;t exactly been knocking the cover off the ball lately and Citi Field (I almost said Shea Stadium) will be rocking\u00a0 Advantage Mets.<\/li>\n<li>Wednesday 5\/18\/16: <strong>Gio Gonzalez<\/strong> versus (presumably) <strong>Bartolo Colon<\/strong>: The Mets lefties can&#8217;t hit Gio and he&#8217;s been solid &#8230; but he&#8217;s also prone to meltdowns under stress.\u00a0 Washington only saw Colon once last year and it was on opening day; he&#8217;s 43 and still slinging the ball in there.\u00a0 Advantage: even.<\/li>\n<li>Thursday 5\/19\/16: <strong>Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> versus <strong>Matt Harvey<\/strong>: The Nats are 8-0 in Strasburg&#8217;s 8 starts so far and he&#8217;s earning his new pay-day.\u00a0 Harvey is showing the signs of too many innings last year, has an ERA of nearly 5.00 and is 3-5 in his starts.\u00a0 But Harvey is a big-game guy and will get up for this one.\u00a0 Nonetheless, I give advantage to Nats.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Prediction\/Hopes: you always hope and expect winning just 1 of 3 against a top rival on the road; if the Nats steal an extra game i&#8217;d be ecstatic.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first 6 weeks of the season have just been warm-up for this series.\u00a0 Its time for the rubber to hit the road.\u00a0 Time to see what&#8217;s what. That&#8217;s right; its Mets and Nationals to see who takes round 1 in the battle for the 2016 NL East title. (yes I know the Phillies are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[343,385,1666,1037,2326,38],"class_list":["post-12215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsgeneral","tag-bartolo-colon","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-matt-harvey","tag-max-scherzer","tag-noah-snydergaard","tag-stephen-strasburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12215"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12219,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12215\/revisions\/12219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}