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Mets (Severino) vs Pirates (Falter) 4/17 1:10 PM
The New York Mets have the opportunity today to sweep the Pirates to win their 4th game in a row.
Bailey Falter will be the starting pitcher for the Pirates today. Falter has had a pretty solid start to the year, in his last two games he has only let up one earned run over five hits. He has a record of 1-1 with an ERA of 2.76 and 11 strikeouts in 4 appearances against the Mets in his career.
For the Mets Severino will take the ball as he makes his fourth start of the season. Severino seems to keep getting better as the season goes on. Against the Kansas City Royals last weekend he only gave up one hit which was a home run. On the season he has a 3.00 ERA with 17 strikeouts over 15 innings pitched. With Severino playing in the American League prior to joining the Mets he has only played the Pirates twice in his career, striking out 9 and only giving up 1 run in the two starts.
Keys to the game:
Plain and simple, Mets fans have seen it the last two games against the Pirates, get to the Pirates bullpen as fast as possible. In the first two games against the Pirates, the Mets have scored 6 runs in the 7th inning and above. Which seems to have been a common theme over the last week and a half, but for today the Mets must find a way to get into the Pirates bullpen early.
Severino is going to need to eat some innings up today as well. Regardless of the outcome of this game the bullpen will need to be very well rested heading into the weekend series against the Dodgers.