New York Yankees vs. New York Mets: Series Preview

Although Sunday’s win provided some much-needed relief, the Yankees still have a while to go before they prove that they are out their horrific skid. If they are going to fully get out of it, the next couple days are going to be some hard work, as next up is a visit from the Mets.

A couple weeks ago at Citi Field, the Yankees dropped a pair of games to the Mets in the early stages of their really bad struggles. The Yankees were in both games, but losing by three runs and then one run, all while scoring just five runs total — which was endemic of the stretch they were about to start.

Now, things will shift over to Yankee Stadium as the teams meet again for another two-game set. Before things get going tonight, here’s a look at the pitching matchups we’ll see over the next two days. Note that the weather forecast for tonight isn’t particularly promising, so there’s a decent chance that the Monday night game will be postponed (both teams have a scheduled offday on Wednesday, for what it’s worth).

Monday: Domingo Germán vs. Max Scherzer (7:05 PM ET)

His season debut was quite catastrophic, but since then Germán has been mostly serviceable. His most recent start wasn’t great, as he gave up three runs in 4.2 innings, but it wasn’t a disaster either, and kept the Yankees in striking distance. His solid but unspectacular season includes his second start of the year, which came against the Mets back on July 27th. That day, he allowed two runs on five hits and two walks in 4.2 innings. Obviously, you’d hope for better, but he just came up second best to the man he’ll be facing again in this one.

Going for the Mets tonight will be the future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer. Back on July 27th, he threw seven shutout innings against the Yankees, allowing five hits and two walks, but managing to strand all of them. In general, Scherzer continues to do Max Scherzer things, coming into this start with a 2.15 ERA and a 2.42 FIP. He’ll be seeking his 200th career win, as the eight-time All-Star is 199-99 over 15 years with the D-backs, Tigers, Nationals, Dodgers, and Mets.

Tuesday: Frankie Montas vs. TBD (7:05 PM ET)

Montas’ Yankee career hasn’t been great so far, as he’s allowed six earned runs in two of his three starts so far. In the most recent start, five of those runs came in one big burst, and he otherwise was mostly fine, but it still wasn’t a great outing. The start in between the two bad ones was mostly fine, but the Yankees in general will be hoping for more than “mostly fine” from their trade deadline acquisition.

The plan for the Mets for this game have seemed to be Jacob deGrom, and while that’s still a possibility, recent developments have added a question mark to that. On Sunday, Taijuan Walker participated in a workout as he looks to return from a back injury that has led to him getting scratched from a recent start. If he’s good to go, the Mets might opt to start Walker in the Tuesday slot to both get him back in the rotation and to provide deGrom an extra day’s rest as he continues his return from his own injury troubles. However if Walker’s not ready, the Mets will likely stick with the earlier plan of deGrom facing the Yankees. If he does, it’ll be the first time the Yankees have faced him since August 13, 2018, where they scored three runs on five hits in 6.2 innings.