Tonight’s game on Five sees the reigning National League champions the Colorado Rockies taking on the New York Mets.  Five’s coverage begins at 01.00 with the first pitch set to be thrown five minutes later.

The first half of the 2008 season has been little short of a disaster for Colorado.  Players and fans alike expected big things this year after the team’s stunning charge to the World Series in ’07, but they enter this game with a 39-56 record and, with the July trading deadline approaching, rumours are now swirling that several members of that World Series team could be heading for new pastures soon.  The most prominent name being mentioned in possible trade talks is star hitter Matt Holliday, who has bucked the trend by putting together another excellent season so far. 

One of the teams linked to Holliday are the New York Mets (50-44).  Following what became the inevitable sacking of manager Willie Randolph, the Mets have recovered from a mediocre start under interim boss Jerry Manuel.  They are currently riding an eight-game winning streak, a run that has catapulted them to within touching distance of the NL East leading Philadelphia Phillies.  In the final game before the three-day All Star break, the Mets would love to extend the streak to nine to finish the first half of the season on a real high. 

The series so far

The pitchers have been on top in the first two games of this series, with just six runs combined being scored.  In the series opener on Friday night, the other bright spot of the Rockies’ season, starting pitcher Aaron Cook, pitched six strong innings only to see his efforts go to waste.  Damion Easley was the unlikely hero for the Mets, hitting a two-out solo home run off Taylor Bucholz in the eighth inning to earn a 2-1 victory for the home team.  Yesterday, the Mets’ pitching staff shut out Colorado’s offense, who could only muster a solitary hit over the nine innings as the Mets won 3-0 and secured the series victory.  The brooms will be out in force at Shea tonight as New York looks to complete the sweep.

The starting pitchers

The Rockies will try to avoid the sweep by sending Mark Redman (2-4, 7.07 ERA) to the mound, which won’t be much cause for optimism for their fans.  The left-hander is an archetypal journeyman starter, now with his eighth different team in the tenth year of his Major League career.  Despite pitching brilliantly in 2003 as part of the World Series winning Florida Marlins, Redman has always skated a fine line between just about being worth a spot at the back of a rotation and losing his job.  His ‘Boeing’-like ERA in 2008 suggests he may be about to fall off the tripwire yet again, although the Rockies’ fall from contention may provide him with a stay of execution back to Triple-A if they simply decide to play out the string and go back to the drawing board over the off-season.  Redman has an assortment of off-speed pitches, the main one being his fastball which rarely breaks 86MPH.

While the Rockies are going into battle with a peashooter, the Mets are bringing a cannon.  Mike Pelfrey (7-6, 3.93 ERA), standing 6ft 7, is a big talent in more ways than one.  2007 season was a bit of a lost year for the highly-touted prospect as he bounced between the Majors and Triple-A, but 2008 has been a different story.  With a hard sinking fastball, Pelfrey is the sort of pitcher who stays over the plate and looks to induce lots of groundballs, rather than racking up the strikeouts.  Theoretically this should allow him to throw less pitches and to get deeper into games and he has made it through seven innings in each of his last two starts.  According to FanGraphs, eighty per cent of the pitches thrown by Pelfrey this season have been fastballs (including his sinker plus four-seam and two-seam varieties), but he also mixes in a slider and an occasional change.  Recent reports have also suggested that his curveball is starting to see the light of day again now that Rick Peterson has been sacked as the Mets’ pitching coach.

Things to look out for 

• Pelfrey’s mouthpiece?  When he pitched on Five earlier this season, Jonny Gould was particularly interested by Pelfrey’s mouthpiece; however it has been conspicuous by its absence in recent weeks.
• Brooms in the crowd.  It’s been a tough season so far for the Shea faithful, so they can be forgiven for milking the potential of a sweep on national TV. 
• The Rockies’ manager Clint Hurdle staring into the distance, thinking about the pitchers he will have at his disposal as manager of the NL All Star team on Tuesday.  Closely followed by a look of pain on Hurdle’s face when he’s brought back down to earth and remembers that Mark Redman is on the mound for this game.