Santana, Mets look to keep good run going

We didn't get the marquee pitching matchup we hoped for with the Giants shuffling their rotation and moving Tim Lincecum up a day in their mix. But considering how well the Mets battered him around in a 7-0 win on Tuesday, it wouldn't have mattered. Now New York lefty Johan Santana takes the hill against the weak San Francisco lineup with the Mets on a bit of a roll heading into the break.


It’s been 50 years since the San Francisco Giants left New York City and set up shop on the Left Coast. They’ve already gotten their rude welcome back to the Big Apple.

The New York Mets gave the Giants a 7-0 thumping in Tuesday’s matchup, the first of a three-game set at Shea Stadium. The fact that they did it against potential All-Star starter Tim Lincecum bodes well for the Mets; they’ve won five of their last six to get back above .500 at 46-44. That’s still 7.4 units in the red, while the Giants are down 5.6 units at 39-51.

Lincecum doesn’t look like he’ll even get to pitch in the Midsummer Classic; his start against the Mets was moved up from Wednesday so that he’d get another crack at a ‘real’ game on Sunday. Meanwhile, Johan Santana is wondering what he has to do to get an All-Star invitation. Santana is high on this year’s list of snubs with a 2.96 ERA and a 3.54 xFIP – numbers comparable to his 2007 Cy Young season with the Minnesota Twins. The difference is his 7-7 record; the Mets have given Santana just 4.33 runs of support per game, and a grand total of six runs over his last three starts.

Santana has to feel good about his chances in Wednesday’s contest. The Mets have scored 30 runs over the past four games since Santana’s last appearance. New York has a .834 OPS in July, up from .703 in June. But how long will this last? The hottest hitters in the Mets lineup have been Damion Easley (14-for-30) and Endy Chavez (11-for-29), two of the stopgaps who were previously struggling to cover the holes in the batting order left by Ryan Church and Moises Alou.

After shuffling the rotation to get Lincecum his extra start, San Francisco will give Jonathan Sanchez the task of cooling off the Mets’ bats. Sanchez has been very effective in his first full season in the majors, posting a 3.87 ERA with a 4.23 xFIP and mowing down 9.2 batters per nine innings of work. The Giants are 13-5 in Sanchez’ 18 starts, making him the second most profitable pitcher in the bigs with 11.28 units. Santana is 3.3 units in debt; that discrepancy alone appears to make San Francisco the value pick at anywhere between +165 and +180 on the MLB betting odds.

The problem with laying cash on the Giants is their batting order.

Unlike the Mets, San Francisco is just as weak at the plate now as it has been all season, putting up an anemic .708 OPS this month. This is a sad collection of hitters that has just gotten worse without Barry Bonds to kick around anymore. Yet they’ve managed to give Sanchez 5.33 runs per game to work with. And the Giants do perform better against southpaws, hitting at a .740 OPS clip.

Santana is no ordinary southpaw. But his history against current San Francisco batters is not sharp - and his recent shift from the American League to the NL hasn’t protected him. Benjie Molina is 11-for-23 with two home runs; Ray Durham is 6-for-14, also with a pair of dingers. All told, transplanted Giants from the AL have a potent .883 OPS against Santana. The Mets, on the other hand, have very limited experience versus Sanchez, hitting 7-for-34 for a wimpy .582 OPS.

Wednesday’s game gets underway at 7:10 p.m. Eastern. The total is seven runs; the over is 45-37-8 for the Mets and 45-43-2 for the Giants.