NL Beast

The Game: New York Mets (14-12) at Arizona Diamondbacks (20-8 )

The Matchup: John Maine (2-2, 3.58 ) vs. Micah Owings (4-0, 3.48 )

The Story: After an embarrassing 13-1 loss against the Pirates, the Mets took a day off and flew across the country, and look to bounce back against the red-hot D-Backs. The big story is Moises Alou, who is expected to play very soon, possibly even tonight. That should hopefully put some fire back into the Mets lineup, which has been disappointing to say the least in recent days. My guess is that Willie will bat Alou sixth, moving the struggling Carlos Delgado down to seventh (can you believe it?) in the order. The Mets will be facing some of the league’s best pitching over the next three days, and the key to winning this series is in Jose Reyes’s ability to get on base.

Tonight’s pitching matchup features two of the premier young pitchers in baseball. John Maine has looked shaky on the mound at times, but has still managed to pitch pretty well so far, holding opponents to 2 runs or less in his last four starts. Micah Owings has been a nice surprise this year for the Snakes, posting an incredible 28:9 K/BB ratio. He’s the weakest of the three opposing pitchers in this series, and will be followed up by Brandon Webb (against Mike Pelfrey tomorrow) and Dan Haren (against Johan Santana on Sunday).

The D-Backs are the hottest team in baseball, riding on their young bats, including Justin Upton, Chris Young, Stephen Drew, Orlando Hudson, and Eric Byrnes. It goes without saying that a series win here for the Mets would be a huge statement.

-Jonathan Kraft