Mets Rally Back Vs. Braves Saturday With Scherzer Starting

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The Atlanta Braves (98-59) tied the New York Mets (98-59) atop the NL East with a 5-2 victory in their 3-game home series opener Friday. For tiebreaker reasons, the Braves need to sweep the Mets this weekend to grab 1st-place in the division.

N.Y. starts future first-ballot Hall of Fame RHP Max Scherzer (11-4, 2.13 ERA) while MLB's wins leader — ATL RHP Kyle Wright (20-5, 3.18 ERA) — gets the nod for the Braves Saturday.

This is pretty much a bet on Scherzer winning a regular-season playoff game. Wright is the man and part of the reason why ATL has a legitimate chance to win back-to-back World Series titles.

But, the Mets have been leading the division all year and the Braves running them down would just be bad juju entering the postseason for N.Y. Scherzer does his part Saturday in keeping the Mets ahead of the Braves in the NL East.

Betting Details (DraftKings)

BET: Mets (-120) ML, all the way up to N.Y. -135

(John Fisher/Getty Images)

Scherzer has pitched great against the Braves this season and Wright is struggling vs. the Mets.

In 2022, Scherzer is 3-0 vs. the Braves with a 2.21 ERA, 0.64 WHIP, 9.33 K/BB rate and 1 HR allowed in 3 starts. Whereas Wright is 0-2 with a 6.23 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 2.33 K/BB rate and 5 HR allowed over just 13 innings pitching in 2 starts vs. the Mets.

Furthermore, Scherzer has much sharper advanced pitching numbers and Wright's fastball gets nuked. Scherzer grades higher than Wright in K%, BB%, expected slash line, exit velocity, hard-hit rate, whiff rate and chase rate, per Statcast.

Also, Wright's 4-seam fastball has a +14 run value with a 54.7% hard-hit rate, according to Statcast. Opposing hitters have a .344 batting average and .583 slugging percentage vs. Wright's 4-seamer.

Finally, N.Y.'s lineup is slightly more productive vs. right-handed pitching than ATL's. The Mets have a higher wRC+ (118-108), wOBA (.328-.326) and BB/K rate (0.42-0.28) than the Braves against righties, per FanGraphs.

Go to DraftKings Sportbook and BET the NEW YORK METS (-120), all the way up to -135.

Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook as of Saturday, Oct. 1 at 11:00 a.m. ET.

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Geoff Clark serves as OutKick’s sports betting guru. As a writer and host of OutKick Bets with Geoff Clark, he dives deep into the sports betting landscape and welcomes an array of sports betting personalities on his show to handicap America’s biggest sporting events. Previously, Clark was a writer/podcaster for USA TODAY's Sportsbook Wire website, handicapping all the major sports tentpoles with a major focus on the NFL, NBA and MLB. Clark graduated from St. John University.