The Mets will try to put Friday night behind them when they face the White Sox again Saturday at Rate Field in Chicago at 7:10 p.m.
New York looked like it had the opener under control after building a four-run cushion, but the game flipped fast. Sean Manaea gave up three straight homers, the White Sox tied it in the sixth, and Jefry Yan later allowed Jake Rogers’ walk-off two-run homer in a 6-4 loss.
That setback stopped the Mets from opening the trip with a win after a 5-1 homestand. They enter Saturday at 58-71, while the White Sox improved their grip on the AL Central, stretching the lead to 4.5 games after the comeback.
Christian Scott gets the ball for New York coming off his fourth win of the year. In his last outing, he worked 6⅓ innings against the Nationals, allowing three earned runs on five hits and two walks. Through 19 starts, Scott is 4-3 with a 3.51 ERA and a 1.29 WHIP.
Luis Castillo will start for Chicago in his fourth appearance since joining the White Sox at the deadline. His first three starts have been a mixed bag: one dominant outing with 10 strikeouts over seven innings, and two others that went sideways.
In his most recent start, he gave up four runs, three earned, on eight hits and one walk with one strikeout in 4⅓ innings. On the season, Castillo is 4-9 with a 4.99 ERA, a 1.37 WHIP and 102 strikeouts across 115⅓ innings between the Mariners and White Sox.
New York’s lineup Saturday has A.J. Ewing in center, Francisco Lindor at short, Bo Bichette at third, Carson Benge in right, Jared Young at first, Luis Robert Jr. in left, Brett Baty at designated hitter, Marcus Semien at second and Francisco Alvarez behind the plate.
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Even with the missed time, Sotos approach remained as polished as ever, and he even trimmed his strikeout rate to a career-low 13.4 percent while lifting his fly-ball rate to 34.8 percent. The bigger question for the Mets is not whether he can hit like Juan Soto, but whether they can keep him on the field long enough for that consistency to matter over the full season. [Read more 🡒]
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Mets Fans Still Know This Painful Way A Strong Debut Gets Wasted
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McHughs career eventually turned into a very different story, as the right-hander dug himself out of an 0-8 start and later found real success after joining the Astros in 2014. But for Mets fans, the memory of that debut still lands in the same place as so many frustrating nights before and after it: a promising performance on the mound, limited help at the plate, and the uneasy sense that the result should have looked much better. [Read more 🡒]
