Can you believe it’s already been a decade?
A couple months from now, it will officially be 10 years since the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets in 5 games to claim their second World Series title in franchise history. (11-year-old Trenton was so happy.)
This final series before the All-Star Break for each team is a big one. The Royals come in after sweeping the lowly Pirates, and winners in 7 of their last 9 contests. They have moved to 46-48 on the season.
The Mets come to town after playing a doubleheader yesterday in Baltimore, which they were swept in. The Mets are 53-41 on the season and second in the NL East and hold down one of the Wild Card spots in the NL.
They boast some of the best offensive players in the whole sport in Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso. As a team, the Mets have hit the 7th most home runs in the league, despite being middle of the pack in runs scored. They are patient at the plate, drawing the 6th most walks this season, and are in the bottom half of the league in striking out, so they are all tough outs at the plate.
On the pitching side of things, the Mets don’t have anyone superstars in their rotation, but they do have a lot of good pitchers. Kodai Senga is coming of the injured list and will start Friday night, with no restrictions. The Japanese born pitcher has a 1.47 ERA in 73.2 innings so far this season. Senga hurt his hamstring covering first base back in mid-June. Frankie Montas is the scheduled starter for Saturday afternoon’s game and the Mets plan to have Sean Manaea come back from the IL and be the bulk pitcher after former Yankees reliever, and a surprise at starting this year Clay Holmes gets the ball to start Sunday’s game.
The Mets bullpen is solid, boasting a 3.80 ERA, they have a solid closer in Edwin Diaz, but nobody else overly notable name wise out there, just a bunch of guys that get the job done.
This last series before the All-Star Break is monumental for the Royals, who are playing really well over the last week in a half, they are second in the AL Central (although, still wayyy behind Detroit), and they are 3.5 back of the last Wild Card spot in Boston, the only other team ahead of them is the Mariners, so they have steadily been climbing the last 10 days.