Miami Marlins @ New York Mets (4/24-4/26) Preview: The Return of Jose Reyes to NY Series

After a rough weekend in Washington, the Miami Marlins are now 7-8 on the season and just 2-6 on the road. The Marlins did not have a chance to pull their record to .500 or improve that atrocious road record, as the series finale against the Washington Nationals was rained out. The Marlins will travel to New York in hopes of improving their record against the New York Mets.

Jose Reyes will make his anticipated return to New York during this series. Reyes will play his first career against the only baseball franchise he knew before he signed with the Marlins. It will be interesting to see the type of reaction that Reyes gets in his return. However, if yesterday’s game is any indication, Reyes may not have to worry about what sort of reaction he gets.

I had a chat with Matt Musico, the Editor of Fansided’s Mets site, Rising Apple. I will post that chat later on today.

Miami Marlins (7-8) @ New York Mets (8-8), April 24-26, Games 16-18

NL East Standings

Stadium: Citi Field 

Five-year Run PF*: .97

Five-year HR PF*: .96

Stadium Dimensions:

Left field line—335 ft.
Left-center field—385 ft.
Center field—408 ft.
Right-center field—375 ft.
Right field line—330 ft.

*Five-year regressed park factors provided by Patriot here

Projected Pitching Matchups

April 20: Josh Johnson vs. Johan Santana
April 21: Mark Buehrle vs. R.A. Dickey
April 22:  Ricky Nolasco vs. Jon Niese

ZiPS In-Season Projections

Projected Lineup

Notes:

• This series will mark the first time Jose Reyes will take the field against his former team. I expect Reyes to have a big series.
• Reyes and the Marlins will also be seeing the new dimensions of Citi Field for the first time. Could the moved in fences equate to more Giancarlo Stanton home runs?
• Neither the Marlins or Mets have had much production from first base. Both teams will need their first baseman to get kick started for them to do well this season.
• The first game featured the best pitching match up of the series. The Marlins are hoping that Josh Johnson can continue his success from his previous start.
• JJ is going to need to start getting more swings and misses in order for him to return to his former ace self.
• Meanwhile, the Mets will send out Johan Santana. Santana is coming off of a rough outing against the Atlanta Braves.
• Johnson is 8-1 with a 2.68 ERA in his career vs the Mets. Santana is 6-1 with a 1.47 ERA career vs the Fish.
• The second game is going to feature a pitcher that should give the Marlins hitters a lot of fits.
• The Marlins in 2012 have struggled against soft pitchers, and R.A Dickey features the slowest pitch in baseball, the knuckle-ball.
• Mark Buehrle is going to give the Mets hitters some fits as well, the middle game should be a low-scoring affair.
• Buehrle has never faced the Mets in his career, Jason Bay is the only Mets player that has faced Buehrle before. Dickey is 5-2 with a 3.91 ERA career vs the Marlins.
• The final game features Ricky Nolasco and Jon Niese. This game should be the highest scoring game.
• Nolasco has been solid for the Marlins so far, but is still a threat to blow up with a horrendous game at any time.
• Niese has been solid for the Mets so far as well, but is pitching much better then his track record this season.
• Nolasco has struggled against the Mets in his career with a 5-7 mark with a 5.27 ERA career vs the Mets. Niese is 1-4 with a 5.67 ERA vs the Fish.
• The Marlins are now 1-4 against the NL East and will need to improve on that. The Mets are 7-5 against the NL East.

Prediction:

The Marlins will take of three games against the Mets and pull even their record at .500. The Marlins will struggle against R.A. Dickey and will fall to the Mets. The Marlins will win the first and third games behind strong starts from Johnson and Nolasco. Jose Reyes will have 5 hits for the Marlins this series and be the player of the series for the Marlins.

*April 27-30: vs Arizona Diamondbacks

May 1-3: @San Francisco Giants

May 4-6: @San Diego Padres

*Get your tickets now from TiqIQ.

You can ‘Like’ Marlin Maniac by clicking here. You can follow Marlin Maniac on Twitter @MarlinManiac and you can follow Ehsan Kassim on Twitter at @ehsank24.