![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/johan-santana-mets-92.jpg\")
<\/a>New York will look to close out its nine-game road trip with a three-game sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays, outscoring its current opponent by a 20-3 margin in the first two games.\u00a0 The Mets have been getting incredible starting pitching over the previous 20 games, with the staff posting an 11-4 record and 2.43 ERA.\u00a0 The club is 3-5 in interleague play this year, but will return to National League action over the weekend, hosting the Cincinnati Reds for three games.\u00a0 New York is 3-4 as a road underdog of +100 to +125, with the \u201cover\u201d going 5-2 in those contests.<\/p>\n
Mets starting pitcher Johan Santana (3-3, 2.96 ERA) enters off a disappointing 9-1 road loss to the New York Yankees, giving up six runs and seven hits over five innings, as he was definitely feeling the effects of throwing a career-high in pitches in the previous outing.\u00a0 The left-hander is 0-2 with a 6.20 ERA in five road starts, surrendering six home runs in 24.2 combined innings.\u00a0 In 12 career games (eight starts) versus the Rays, Santana has tallied a 3-3 record and 2.75 ERA, including a 2-0 mark and 1.85 ERA in four outings (two starts) at this venue.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay has to be a bit puzzled about the amount of runs its giving up in this series, entering Wednesday with a 3.51 ERA, which led the American League for the eighth consecutive day.\u00a0 \u201cEverything they\u2019re hitting is finding an open spot,\u201d commented Rays manager Joe Maddon.\u00a0 The Rays are now 4-4 in interleague play, including losses in four of five games at home.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is 9-12 against left-handed starters this year.<\/p>\n
Rays starting pitcher Jeremy Hellickson (4-2, 2.65 ERA) has watched the club alternate wins and losses over his last six outings, as he failed to earn a decision in a 5-1 road victory over the Miami Marlins last time out.\u00a0 The 25-year-old struggled with his control in that effort, issuing a season-high seven free passes.\u00a0 The right-hander is 3-2 with a 1.59 ERA in seven home outings, with opponents hitting just .217 against him.\u00a0 Hellickson will be facing the Mets for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n
Bettors will likely back the Rays due to their 11-5 mark after losing the first two games of a series, while the Mets are 1-4 in Santana\u2019s last five road starts.<\/p>\n
Make sure to check out our Major League Baseball picks<\/a> all season long and get the most up-to-date betting odds at Bookmaker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The New York Mets (34-29) and Tampa Bay Rays (35-27) will close out a three-game interleague series on Thursday afternoon at Tropicana Field, with the first pitch scheduled for 1:10 ET New York Mets at Tampa Bay Rays New York will look to close out its nine-game road trip with a three-game sweep of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1604,42,43,150,1574],"class_list":["post-23372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-jeremy-hellickson","tag-johan-santana","tag-new-york-mets","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23373,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23372\/revisions\/23373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}