2020-09-22 19:10:00 EDT
The Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Mets meet in MLB action from Citi Field on Tuesday night.
The Tampa Bay Rays will be looking to build off of a 2-1 win over the Mets from Monday’s opener. Nate Lowe had a solo homer and Manuel Margot added an RBI as well to finish off Tampa Bay’s scoring as a team in the win. Joey Wendle went 2 for 4 with a double while Brandon Lowe added a double as well and Yoshi Tsutsugo had a base hit as well to finish off the offense for the Rays in the victory. Josh Fleming got the win in relief to improve to 4-0 on the year while Nick Anderson closed out the 9th for his 6th save of the year. Blake Snell will start here and is 4-1 with a 3.05 ERA and 54 strikeouts this season. This will be Snell’s second career start against the Mets.
The New York Mets will look to bounce back after another disappointing effort behind Jacob deGrom from Monday’s opener. Jeff McNeil went 2 for 4 with an RBI while Wilson Ramos added a pair of hits as well as the Mets had just four hits as ateam coming from Ramos and McNeil. Jacob deGrom deserved better, but took the loss nonetheless after allowing two runs on four hits with 14 strikeouts over seven innings of work. Seth Lugo will start here and is 2-3 with a 4.34 ERA and 39 strikeouts this season. This will be Lugo’s first career start against Tampa Bay.
Tampa Bay is 12-3 in their last 15 games as a road favorite and 30-11 in their last 41 games overall while the under is 5-0 in their last 5 interleague games. New York is 2-5 in their last 7 home games and 0-4 in their last 4 games against a left-handed starter while the over is 4-0-1 in their last 5 games as an underdog. Tampa Bay is 5-1 in the last 6 meetings between these two teams.
I was really hoping I could get a bit more value here with the Rays, but the line is playable so I’ll take it. New York’s sliding right now, and while the Mets are desperate, if they couldn’t get the win with deGrom on the mound on Monday in a winnable spot, I’m not sure how they’ll get it done on Tuesday with Lugo starting against a former Cy Young award winner in Blake Snell on the other side. I’ll lay the juice with the Rays here who are closing in on the top spot in the American League for the playoffs.
