San Diego Padres (66-58) -150, o/u 7 1/2 at New York Mets (71-53), 7:10 pm Eastern Wednesday, ESPN2
by Zman of Predictem.com
West meets East when the San Diego Padres take on the New York Mets in the middle game of a three-game series Wednesday night at Shea Stadium.
The Mets won the opener of this series Tuesday night 7-6 in interesting fashion. New York led early 4-1, but trailed 6-5 going into the bottom of the ninth. The Mets then rallied off fabled closer Trevor Hoffman for two runs and the victory. The 13 runs and 23 hits combined seems like a lot for a game started by Chris Young and John Maine.
San Diego, losers of three of its last four games, sits in second place in the National League's Western Division, 3½ games back of the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks. The Padres are also tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for the lead in the NL wild-card race.
New York, which has won four games in a row and seven of its last eight, scoring 60 runs over that span, leads the NL East by five games over second-place Philadelphia.
San Diego is 31-29 on the road this season, while the Mets are 33-27 at home. Also, the Padres are 50-33 as favorites, while New York is 13-19 as underdogs.
These two teams have split four games this season, with the o/u going 2-2. Last year, the Mets won the season series with San Diego five games to two, the o/u going 4-3.
Jake Peavy (13-5, 2.19) is set to start for the Padres Wednesday, while former Padre Brian Lawrence (1-0, 5.06) is slated to go for New York. Peavy has been pretty sick lately, and in that good way, allowing just four ER and 29 baserunners (hits + walks) and whiffing 39 in his last 33 2/3 innings, covering his last five starts. San Diego is 17-8 when Peavy starts this season, the o/u 9-15.
Peavy has started two games vs. the Mets over the last two seasons, giving up four ER and 12 baserunners in 13 IP. But the Pads lost both those contests.
Lawrence, who went 49-61 with San Diego from 2001-05, has started three games this season for New York, all in the last three weeks, allowing nine ER and 27 baserunners in 16 innings of work. The Mets are 1-2 in Lawrence's starts this year, the o/u 2-1.
Lawrence has never started a game vs. his former team.
The Padres rank dead last in Major League Baseball with their .315 team OBP, and are averaging 4.4 runs per game.
New York owns a .341 team OBP, which ranks as seventh-best in baseball, and is averaging 4.8 RPG.
Both bullpens have been a bit iffy as of late. San Diego relievers have given up nine ER and 28 baserunners in their last 15 1/3 IP, and the Mets bullpen has allowed eight ER and 26 baserunners over its last 13 2/3 innings.
The o/u is 56-64 in Padres games this year, 59-59 in New York games, and 28-30 at Shea Stadium.
The Predictem Pick: Jake Peavy has a 1.06 ERA on the road this season and has only yielded 40 hits in 67.2 innings pitched. Those are unhead of numbers and we'd have bet this game even if the odds were -200!
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