The Mets take their good vibes from their recent sweep out West for a six-game swing against NL West foes.
Following a 4-2 homestand, the first-place Mets (59-44) embark on a six-game west coast swing, beginning with three games against the Giants (54-49). The Mets dropped four of six games to the Giants last year, including dropping two of three at Oracle Park. The Mets have not won a series in San Francisco since 2018, when they took two of three. Since then, the Mets have gone 6-11 against the Giants in San Francisco.
The Mets just swept the Angels at home and leapfrogged the Phillies for first place in the NL East. The series started with a startling 7-5 win that was greatly aided by the Angels’ awful defense and subpar bullpen. The Mets fell behind 4-0, as Kodai Senga only lasted three innings and saw his streak of 31 straight starts without allowing more than three earned runs end. The Mets chipped away with a two-run Brett Baty homer, and tied it up with three in the seventh, two of which came from Juan Soto’s game-tying single. A Chris Taylor misplay in the eighth resulted in a Francisco Alvarez double, and the Mets again scored the go-ahead run in the eighth on an infield grounder and misplay.
Tuesday’s win was all about the baby Mets as they prevailed 3-2 to secure a series in. The Mets were outhit 11-5 in this one, but the Mets scored three in the fifth which ended up being the difference. The big blast was Alvarez’s two-run home run, and Brandon Nimmo drove in another one with a hit. That was enough for Frankie Montas to pick up his third win as a member of the Mets.
The Mets closed out the series with a 6-3 victory on Wednesday afternoon. The big story in this one was Francisco Lindor breaking out of a career-worst 0-for-31 stretch with two hits while driving in two runs. Nimmo led off with a home run, and Pete Alonso picked up his 22nd home run of the year, which puts him just four behind Darryl Strawberry for the franchise lead. Sean Manaea pitched five innings of one-run ball and Edwin Díaz picked up his 21st save of the season.
As mentioned, Lindor broke out of a career-worst 0-for-31 on Wednesday with two run-scoring hits. Gary Cohen mentioned in a prior broadcast that Lindor’s struggles really seem to have begun when he broke his toe on June 5. Despite playing through much of it and appearing in the All-Star game, his numbers speak for themselves. Since the injury, Lindor is slashing .199/.253/.342 with five homers, 23 runs scored, 21 runs batted in, and a 69 wRC+ in 40 games. For contrast, prior to that, Lindor was hitting .279/.353/.490 with 14 homers, 42 runs scored, 36 runs batted in, and a 137 wRC+ in 60 games.
The Giants enter this series off a 2-4 road trip in which they lost the first four, including a three-game sweep in Toronto against the Blue Jays, before taking two out of three against the Braves. San Francisco currently resides in third place in the NL West, six games behind the first-place Dodgers. They are also 1.5 games behind the Padres for the third and final NL Wild Card spot.
The Giants are in the position they are in largely due to their disappointing offense, which ranks 12th in the NL with a 96 wRC+ and 13th with a .687 OPS. They are 11th in the NL in runs scored with 431 this season. On the flip side, their starting pitching enters play with a 3.89 ERA, which is fifth-best in the NL, and a 3.63 FIP, which is second to the Phillies in the NL. Their bullpen currently sports a 3.21 ERA, which is second-best behind only the Padres, and a 3.63 FIP, which is third-best in the league.
San Francisco made a big splash earlier this year when they acquired Rafael Devers from the Red Sox. Devers, who came over with a .272/.401/.504 slash line, 15 homers, and a 146 wRC+ in 73 games for Boston, hasn’t meshed yet in his new home, hitting just .243/.346/.409 with four homers and a 114 wRC+ in 31 games. Matt Chapman has been the offense star at the center of San Francisco’s offense, slashing .243/.352/.447 with 14 homers and a team-high 129 wRC+ and 2.9 fWAR in 79 games.
Willy Adames, who inked a seven-year, $182 million deal this offseason with the club, is slashing .229/.316/.402 with a team-high 15 homers and 60 runs scored, to go along with a 104 wRC+ and a 2.1 fWAR in a team-leading 102 games. Lastly, old friend Wilmer Flores is hitting .245/.318/.385 with 12 homers, a 101 wRC+, and a 0.2 fWAR in 91 games. It’s been a tale of two seasons for Flores, who hit three home runs in a game on May 16. At the end of play on May 16, he was hitting .266/.318/.468 with 10 homers, 41 runs batted in, and 23 runs scored in 44 games. From May 17 onward, he’s hitting .226/.317/.305 with two homers, 18 runs batted in, and 17 runs scored in 47 games.
Friday, July 25: Clay Holmes vs. Logan Webb, 10:15 PM EDT on WPIX
Holmes (2025): 108.2 IP, 86 K, 43 BB, 11 HR, 3.48 ERA, 4.21 FIP, 88 ERA-
Holmes picked up his fifth loss of the season after allowing five runs (four earned) over 5 1⁄3 innings on Saturday against the Reds. It was the second time in three starts that he’s been charged with five runs. More alarmingly, he hasn’t completed six innings of work since June 7, and his outings have taxed the bullpen. He’s well beyond his career high in innings, and team is being very careful with his pitch count and innings. It’ll be interesting to see how they address it going forward and whether they entertain a move back to the bullpen for the former star closer.
Webb (2025): 131.2 IP, 140 K, 29 BB, 9 HR, 3.08 ERA, 2.58 FIP, 77 ERA-
Webb has been a workhorse for San Francisco this year, and he currently leads all NL starters in innings pitched and starts, In fact, he has led the NL in innings pitched in 2024 and 2023 as well, so this trend should not surprise anyway. The two-time All Star, who finished sixth in Cy Young voting last year, is 11th among NL starting pitchers with a 25.8% K%, seventh in the NL with a 5.4% BB%, and fourth with a 0.62 HR/9, so needless to say he’s a tough pitcher to beat. However, he has struggled in his past couple of starts. His last time out, he allowed four earned runs on a season-high 11 hits over six innings as he absorbed the loss against Toronto. Prior to that, he was tagged for six earned runs over 5 1⁄3 innings against the Dodgers on July 11, but he picked up the win as his offense bailed him out.
Saturday, July 26: David Peterson vs. Robbie Ray, 9:05 PM EDT on SNY
Peterson (2025): 115.0 IP, 98 K, 38 BB, 7 HR, 2.90 ERA, 3.34 FIP, 73 ERA-
Fresh off his first career All-Star game appearance, Peterson picked up right where he left off, holding the Reds to one unearned run over six innings. He allowed just four hits, walked one, hit a batter, and struck out four, and did not factor into the decision. After a rocky end to his June—he allowed five earned runs in each of his last two starts that month—he has rebounded in a big way, posting a 0.92 ERA, a 3.25 FIP, and a 0.92 WHIP in 19 2⁄3 innings this month.
Ray (2025): 123.1 IP, 131 K, 43 BB, 15 HR, 2.92 ERA, 3.76 FIP, 73 ERA-
Like Webb, Ray was an All Star in 2025, his first time making the team since he was a member of the Diamondbacks in 2017. Ray is just ahead of Webb in K%, ranking tenth in the NL with a 26.2% K%, but where his teammate excels in not issuing walks, he has the second-worst BB% among qualified NL starters at 9.8%. He is also is prone to the long ball, with a 1.09 HR/9, which is eleventh-worst among NL starting pitchers. In his first outing post-break, the left-hander picked up the loss against Toronto while allowing five earned runs on five hits in 4 1⁄3 innings. He also matched his career high by issuing five free passes, and he only struck out three.
Sunday, July 27: Kodai Senga vs. TBD, 7:10 PM EDT on ESPN
Senga (2025): 80.2 IP, 79 K, 36 BB, 4 HR, 1.79 ERA, 3.32 FIP, 45 ERA-
Not much went right for Senga in his most recent outing. He allowed a season-high four earned runs while walking three and striking out five, and he didn’t make it out of the third innings. The Mets will have to hope it was just a blip on the radar and nothing that snowballs from here on out. Given his performance this year, it’s a fair assumption to make, as he has still been very reliable when health this year.
TBD
The Giants have not yet announced a starting pitcher for Sunday’s game against the Mets.