03.04.2023

New York Mets @ Milwaukee Brewers Game Preview and Prop Pick

One of the few teams to open the season with a four-game series was the New York Mets, and they came out on the other side with a 3-1 record. The Mets will continue their first road trip in Milwaukee this afternoon as they take on a Brewers team that picked up an opening series win over the Cubs. We’ll preview the game before going over which player prop market I’ll be targeting in this one.

Game Preview

It’s never ideal to come out of a long spring training and immediately get shut out with your ace on the mound, but the Brewers bounced back in an impressive way by winning the next two games in the series. Despite the shutout, Milwaukee scored 12 total runs against the Cubs, including a 9-5 win in the rubber match yesterday.

Even with scoring 12 runs in two days, the Brewers will enter today hitting .235 as a team and have yet to record a homerun. Newly acquired Jesse Winker leads the team with four RBIs, and rookie Brice Turang has gotten his career off to a solid start by posting a team-high .556 on-base percentage.

Pitching-wise, the Brewers will hand the ball to Freddy Peralta today for his first start of the year. After a stellar 2021 season, Peralta had an injury-riddled 2022 season, as he recorded 17 starts for 78 innings and a 3.58 ERA. The right-hander will take on a Mets lineup that hit .223 in their four games against the Marlins but did manage to score five or more runs in all three wins they recorded.

Starling Marte and Mark Canha were the Mets' most consistent hitters this past weekend, hitting .308 or better. On the mound, New York will roll out Carlos Carrasco to make his first start of the year. In 152 innings last season, the veteran went 15-7 with a 3.97 ERA and 152 strikeouts. The most impressive aspect of Carrasco’s 2022 season was that he was in the 94th percentile in chase rate.

Prop Pick

For my prop play in this one, I’ll be targeting Willy Adames over 1.5 total bases at (+123). Adames has a total of 11 plate appearances against Carrasco, and he is hitting .778 against him. The shortstop is 7-9 with a walk, double, homerun, and five singles, so he clearly sees the right-hander incredibly well.

Adames only picked up two hits in the opening series, so he is likely looking forward to being back in his home ballpark against a pitcher he is more than comfortable against. In 2022, the Brewers shortstop hit .265 against fastballs with an average exit velocity of 90.3 MPH; this is a big reason why he hits Carrasco so well since the Mets starter threw his fastball more than any other pitch in his arsenal last season at 35.1%.

Aside from the fastball success, Adames is also a heavy pull hitter with a career 38.3% pull percentage. Carrasco allowed a pull percentage of 41.8% last season which is almost 5% higher than the league average, so he is just the ideal pitcher for Adames to face and have success against.