Mets starting pitcher Hisanori Takahashi is 7-4 with a 4.69 ERA in 26 games (10 starts) this season.\u00a0 He suffered an 8-4 road defeat to the Giants last time out, surrendering six runs and seven hits over just 2.2 innings of work.\u00a0 The left-hander is 3-2 with a 5.44 ERA in 11 away outings (six starts), allowing opponents to hit for a .311 combined average. \u00a0 Takahashi picked up the victory in relief in a 10-5 home victory in his only career appearance against the Dodgers on April 27.\u00a0 In that appearance, he allowed just a single run and two hits over 3.1 frames.\u00a0 In his 10 starts this season, the Mets offense has provided him just 2.50 runs of support a game (6-4 O\/U).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Los Angeles picked up a 2-0 shutout victory in the series finale against the San Francisco Giants last night, as bench coach Don Mattingly picked up his first managerial victory in Joe Torre\u2019s absence.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s what we needed,\u201d said Mattingly.\u00a0 \u201cIt feels good for the club.\u201d\u00a0 The Dodgers ended a six-game losing streak with the victory, but are still batting .247 and scored just 18 runs since the All-Star break.\u00a0 Los Angeles moved its divisional record to 24-8, but now will need to improve upon its record against the NL East.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 5-11 against Eastern foes this season, while posting a winning 17-15 mark against the Central.\u00a0 The club is 5-2 on the season after picking up a shutout victory (+270), with the total being 3-4 O\/U in those contests.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Dodgers starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda is 7-8 with a 3.74 ERA in 18 starts this season, but has dropped two straight games due to lack of run support.\u00a0 The offense has managed to be shutout in his last two outings, as the right-hander has allowed five runs and 10 hits over 13 innings in that span.\u00a0 He is an even 3-3 with a 3.75 ERA in nine home starts, picking up 37 strikeouts and walking just 16 in 57.2 innings.\u00a0 Kuroda is 0-3 with a 7.71 ERA in four career starts against the Mets.\u00a0 New York batters are hitting .359 against him with four home runs.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Playing the total is not out of the question, with the Mets being 3-1 O\/U as a road underdog of +150 to +175 this season.\u00a0 The Dodgers are 15-14 O\/U against left-handed starters, but 21-12 O\/U when the total is 8 to 8.5.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tonight’s matchup features two teams that are desperately trying to stay within striking distance in their respective divisions. New York Mets at Los Angeles Dodgers New York stumbles into a four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers after losing 4-3 in 14 innings on Wednesday and getting swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.\u00a0 The Mets are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2307,1157,1735,896,429,43,1653],"class_list":["post-5805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-don-mattingly","tag-hiroki-kuroda","tag-hisanori-takahashi","tag-joe-torre","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-new-york-mets","tag-nl-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5805","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=5805"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5807,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5805\/revisions\/5807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Andre-Ethier-dodgers-02-150x150.jpg\")
New York stumbles into a four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers after losing 4-3 in 14 innings on Wednesday and getting swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.\u00a0 The Mets are dismal 19-30 on the road this season (-930) and have fallen 6.5 games back of the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves.\u00a0 New York is 3-10 in its last 13 games and 8-16 over its last 24 games.\u00a0 Offensively, the team has been held to four runs or fewer in 12 straight games, as the club has compiled a 3-9 record over that stretch.\u00a0 In their last seven games, the Mets have managed to score first just once, with the team being 9-28 when the opponent draws first blood.\u00a0 Expect a possible bounce back performance in tonight\u2019s change of venue, with the team being 5-3 after three or more consecutive losses this season (+340) and 26-19 in this spot the last three years (+1,240).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n