New York Mets at Atlanta Braves preview: back to Turner Field
The Atlanta Braves are coming off of an 8-3 road trip and looking to build on their NL East lead with a three-game home series with the New York Mets, which starts tonight. Aside from an injury to Evan Gattis, everything has gone well for the Braves lately, and hopefully they can keep that up during the last home stretch before the All-Star break.
On the other hand, the Mets will be wrapping up a long 16-day road trip in Atlanta–they are 6-7 so far on the trip.
On the mound for the Braves and Mets tonight will be Alex Wood and Zack Wheeler respectively.
Zack Wheeler: Wheeler is coming off of his worst outing of the season, where he gave up six runs in two innings of work against the Oakland Athletics. During that June 25 game, Wheeler walked two and struck out four. For the season, Wheeler’s numbers are pretty solid, and it looks like he’s actually been a bit unlucky thanks to a .332 BABIP. He’s posting good strikeout numbers (9.20 K/9) and his FIP/xFIP (3.28/3.34) numbers say he’s been better than what his 4.45 ERA might suggest. The one thing that he’s always struggled a bit with are the walks, and so far he’s putting on 3.74 batters per nine innings this year.
Alex Wood: The resurgent Wood pitched admirably in his return to the mound last week against the Houston Astros. It was the first time he’d started for the Braves since May 4, and all he did was throw seven shutout innings and allow just three hits. We’ve long said on this site that Wood has one of the better repertoire’s of the Atlanta starting rotation, and he’s been putting up the numbers to match that this season. Wood’s looking at a 3.07 ERA, 3.22 and 2.98 xFIP while striking out 8.96 batters per nine and walking just 2.14 per nine.
Here are the particulars for tonight’s matchup:
Date: June 30, 2014
Start Time: 7:10 pm ET
TV Channel: SportSouth, MLB Network (National)
Radio: 680 AM/106.7 FM (Local in Atlanta), Full list of Local Affiliates
Live Stream: MLB.tv (Click Here, $)
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