Chris Young takes the mound in the first game for the Mets. Opposing base stealers are 144 for 158 during Young's career and only one of the last 28 stolen base attempts against Young have been foiled.
Johan Santana has held lefties to a .235/.288/.386 slash line in his career but he has stepped it up a notch this season. He has faced 66 lefties so far in 2012 and has held them to a .177/.215/.306 slash line while allowing just four extra base hits, walking three, and striking out 18.
R.A. Dickey comes into the series leading baseball in wins along with a 4.0 strikeout to walk rate and has allowed three earned runs or less in 11 of his 12 starts this season and nobody has a successful stolen base against him this season.
Over the last 30 days, David Wright is pacing the Mets with a .410 wOBA and has a .298/.416/.564 slash line. Lucas Duda is doing damage as well with a 129 wOBA and a .255/.345/.490 slash line. Scott Hairston is their lefty masher who has hit six home runs in just 47 plate appearances in recent weeks.
Baseball Prospectus ranks the Rays 11th in its Park Adjusted Defensive Efficiency metric at 1.52 while ranking the Mets 23rd at -1.34. FanGraphs ranks the Ray's team fielding 15th at 2.5 runs above replacement while the Mets are 29th at 26.3 runs below replacement.
Mark Simon from the ESPN Stats and Info group used their neat tool to show which hitters Joe Maddon may employ the shift against in this series.
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