MLB Game Preview - Washington at NY Mets

Fri Aug 9, 2019 7:10 PM EDT

The New York Mets raised a lot of eyebrows around baseball on July 28, when they acquired Marcus Stroman from the Toronto Blue Jays despite only being on the fringes of wild-card contention in the National League.

The Mets haven't stopped raising eyebrows since, and on Friday night, Stroman will make his home debut in the biggest game New York has played at Citi Field in almost three years.

Stroman (6-11, 3.07 ERA) will oppose the Washington Nationals and Stephen Strasburg (14-5, 3.72) in a battle of right-handers.

Both teams were off Thursday after completing sweeps Wednesday. The Mets ran their winning streak to six games by beating the visiting Miami Marlins 7-2 to cap a four-game sweep. The Nationals maintained increased their lead atop the NL wild-card standings by defeating the host San Francisco Giants 4-1 to finish a three-game set.

With their win over the Marlins, the Mets improved to 10-1 since acquiring Stroman. But their surge into contention actually began three days earlier with a 4-0 rubber-game win over the San Diego Padres.

Since that victory, New York has gone 13-1 -- the club's best 14-game span since 1990 -- to surge over .500 and move from eight games out of a playoff spot to 59-56 and in a tight, five-team battle for the second NL wild card.

"If we keep rolling the way we are -- I know we're getting down to the nitty-gritty -- but we've got a really awesome chance to do something really special and make a helluva run towards the end," said Mets rookie first baseman Pete Alonso, who homered for the third straight game Wednesday and has 37 round-trippers, four shy of the single-season team record. "So we're just going to keep playing ball and see what happens."

The Nationals are well-acquainted with season-saving runs. Washington fell a season-high 12 games under .500 with a 6-4 loss to the Mets on May 23, the finale of a four-game New York sweep at Citi Field. The Nationals then won 30 of their next 41 games to surge into a playoff position that they have occupied for more than a month.

The success in San Francisco snapped a mini-skid for the Nationals, who entered the series with a 3-7 record in their previous 10 games.

"That's a good sweep because we go to New York (and) these guys are playing really good right now," Nationals outfielder Gerardo Parra told reporters after hitting a three-run homer Wednesday.

Stroman, who was born and raised on Long Island about an hour east of Citi Field, didn't factor into the decision in his Mets debut on Saturday, when he allowed three runs over 4 1/3 innings in New York's 7-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Strasburg's seven-start winning streak was snapped Saturday, when he took the loss after giving up nine runs over 4 2/3 innings as the Nationals fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks 18-7 in Phoenix.

Stroman has never faced the Nationals. Strasburg is 9-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 20 career starts against the Mets.

--Field Level Media