NL Beast

The Game: New York Mets (16-15) at Los Angeles Dodgers (19-14)

The Matchup: John Maine (3-2, 3.48 ) vs. Brad Penny (5-2, 3.19)

The Story: After an extremely disappointing night in which the Mets left 13 runners stranded on base, New York looks to bounce back and take one last game to go .500 on the roadtrip. Losing today means that the third-place Mets would fall to .500 on the season. Don’t expect many cheers at Shea on Friday night if the Dodgers bring out the brooms today.

John Maine looks to assert himself on the mound today after a somewhat disappointing start to the year. The glaring problem with Maine’s pitching right now is the amount of walks that he is giving up, which is unlike him. His K/BB ratio stands at 1.53 this year, down from 2.40 last year.

Brad Penny is the ace of the Dodgers’ staff, and has pitched well so far this year. He faces a weaker Mets lineup than the one that stranded 13 runners on base last night (how many times can I bring that up today?), one without Moises Alou, Brian Schneider, and Carlos Delgado, who are all getting the day game off after last night. Carlos Beltran will start today after missing most of last night with “flu-like symptoms.”

Rafael Furcal will not start again for the Dodgers. Apparently he’s resting his sore back for the weekend.

Lineups:

Mets: Reyes (SS), Castillo (2B), Wright (3B), Beltran (CF), Church (RF), Pagan (LF), Anderson (1B), Casanova (C), Maine (P)

Dodgers: Pierre (LF), Ethier (RF), Kemp (CF), Kent (2B), Loney (1B), Martin (C), DeWitt (3B), Hu (SS), Penny (P)

-Jonathan Kraft