The teams enjoyed a day off following the season opener and all eyes will be on Mets starter Noah Syndergaard. The righty tossed a fastball at the head of Royals leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar in Game 3 of the World Series, adding a little more excitement to the season-opening series.
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ODDS ANALYSIS
The Royals again are getting a lack of respect from the projection systems out there. Several of these systems picked Kansas City to finish with a win total in the 70s last year. We all know how that turned out. KC won 95 games to finish with the best record in the AL and defeated the Mets in five games to win its first World Series in 30 years.
Baseball Prospectus, a year after predicting the Royals would win 72 games, forecasts KC to be the worst team in the AL Central with 76 victories. FanGraphs has them going 77-85, the worst record in the AL. The Royals don’t listen to what outsiders say. If they did, the championship banner wouldn’t have gone up Sunday. KC isn’t a team satisfied with one World Series title.
PROBABLE PITCHERS
Noah Syndergaard will open his first full season against a Royals team he challenged in the World Series. He went 9-7 with a 3.24 ERA over 150.0 innings of his 24 starts. He fanned 166 and issued only 31 walks.
Given Syndergaard’s size, strength and pitch repertoire, many talent evaluators consider him the Mets starter with the most potential. Few pitchers can touch 100 MPH with their fastball and then snap a nasty breaking ball the way he can.
Veteran Chris Young moves up a spot in the Royals rotation due to Ian Kennedy’s hamstring injury. The 36-year-old right hander went 11-6 with a 3.06 ERA in a career-high 34 games – 18 starts – in his first season with the Royals.
Young earned the win in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series throwing three hitless innings of relief in KC’s extra-inning victory.
LIVE BETTING
This year, don’t count out Syndergaard as a Cy Young hopeful in the NL. “This guy’s got a chance to be off the charts,” Mets manager Terry Collins said of his young righty. A strikeout pitcher, Syndergaard has managed to sit down at least a batter per innings at each stop of his baseball career, while reaching 100 mph on his fastball. When they aren’t striking out, hitters were held to a .224 average against his four-seam fastball, and also had trouble – a .180 average – with his curve, a pitch that can just drop off the table.
QUICK PICK
Syndergaard has the tools to surpass Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom as the Mets ace, and that will likely happen at some point this season. His stuff is exceptional and he added a slider to his pitching arsenal last season. He was filthy during the spring and is ready for more in 2016 after being limited to an innings count last year. While Young was a find for the Royals last year, he is 36 and has lost some zip on his pitches. He wasn’t a part of the rotation at the beginning of last year, but played a large role in the Royals’ title run. Young makes his living with a high 80s fastball and a crippling slider. He has to rely on location and the Mets will be ready.
New York 4, Kansas City 3
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