The New York Mets have fallen out of the Wild Card race in the National League and unless Johan Santana is on the mound they don’t excite bettors at the sportsbook website.
The Mets have a number of problems from third baseman David Wright’s hitting slump to closer Francisco Rodriguez’s trouble with the law. The Mets are definitely a team that many gamblers are very cautious about taking vs. sportsbook baseball odds.
Sportsbook website odds give the Mets some respect when they are at home but not much on the road. The Mets have been pretty good at Citi Field but on the road they have really struggled. Part of their trouble is the major slump that third baseman David Wright has gone into. Heading into Sunday’s game he was 4-for-41 in the month of August. He had gone 11 straight games without a multi-hit game.
Another problem for the Mets is a pitching staff that has two good starters. Santana gets a lot of respect because he is superstar pitcher and R.A. Dickey has been superb. The rest of the staff is not very good. Mike Pelfrey was great in his first 15 starts but he has been very poor since then. Somehow the Mets are in the Top 10 in the league in ERA but it doesn’t really matter since they rarely score any runs. The Mets are just 23rd in the league in runs per game. When Santana and Dickey are on the mound that is sometimes good enough but when other pitchers are going it is usually not.
Just four years ago the Mets were in the National League Championship Series. Things have not gone well for New York since that time. The following season they blew a huge lead and lost 12 of their last 17 games to hand the division title to the Phillies. The last two years have been even worse. They blew another lead in the division in 2008 and finished behind the Phillies. Last season they lost 92 games vs. the sportsbook baseball odds and were never a factor and they could be headed for another losing season in 2010. If not for Santana and Dickey there would not be a lot to cheer for New York fans this season.