The NY Mets and Washington Nationals are playing live on the MLB Opening Day Baseball schedule on Monday and the game from Nationals Park is on ESPN and streaming online from the WatchESPN website as the two teams start the NL East season and the matchup has Max Scherzer and Bartolo Colon on the mound.
With Matt Harvey coming back and a strong rotation behind Colon, the Mets feel that they can compete for a wild card spot this season. The team added Michael Cuddyer and he could provide some steady hitting and this comes after the team signed Curtis Granderson in the previous offseason. David Wright returns healthy and he thinks that the Mets have as much talent as anyone in the NL this season.
Granderson will hit lead off for the first game against the Nats and he will hit ahead of Wright, who is in ahead of Lucas Duda and Cuddyer. The team needs Cuddyer to get things going in the middle of the lineup and that will help players like Wilmer Flores and Daniel Murphy down the line. The Nationals are dealing with some injuries, but they are thrilled to have Scherzer on the mound and they also have Dan Uggla coming in to play second base.
The Nationals are dealing with Anthony Rendon and Denard Span being injured and the team also has Jayson Werth out and that makes the Nats a bit susceptible over the first weeks of the year. Many see the Nats as the best team in the NL this season and they will need their players to get back healthy for any chance at winning the NL East. The team should still be the best in the division, but without some of their best players healthy, it could take some time to get into the swing of things.
The Mets have had a rough go of it over the past few years, but Sandy Alderson has put together a solid roster and now the team has to find a way to win. This happens a lot in Queens, the team comes in with a ton of optimism and by mid-season they are done, but this year feels different. The team has stacked pitching and some young talent and they also play in a league that is wide open in the wild card. The two wild card teams give the Mets a chance and they will be gunning for one of those spots.
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