It's a Subway Series renewal on Monday night when the New York Mets go down the road to face the New York Yankees.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for the Yankees lately. They narrowly avoided a sweep over their divisional foes in the Toronto Blue Jays with a win yesterday but have still dropped seven of their last 10. The Mets return to New York after an arduous road trip against the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves but have still won six of 10.
Who will snag Game 1? Find out our MLB picks and predictions for Monday, August 22, 2022.
Mets vs Yankees odds
This odds widget represents the best odds available for each betting market from regulated sportsbooks.
The Mets opened up as relatively strong -165 favorites. Since then, they have taken more money and dropped to -155, with the Yankees returning at around +145.
The total opened at 7 and has since risen to 7.5 at most books by the time of this writing.
Use the live odds widget above to track any future line movements right up until first pitch and be sure to check out the full MLB odds before placing your bets.
Mets vs Yankees predictions
Picks made on 8/22/2022 at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.
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Mets vs Yankees game info
• Location: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY
• Date: Monday, August 22, 2022
• First pitch: 7:05 p.m. ET
• TV: SNY, YES
Mets vs Yankees betting preview
Starting pitchers
Max Scherzer (9-2, 2.15 ERA): Scherzer was touched up against the Atlanta Braves in his last start, but the matchup was perfect despite the unraveling. Scherzer's looming issue this season is barrel rate, and it's more pressing than any point in his career. Outside of that, everything else is elite with a strikeout rate, chase rate, and whiff rate all ranking in the Top 10% of baseball.
Domingo German (1-2, 4.45 ERA): I have likely been more bullish on German down the stretch than most of the betting public. This is simply because I feel that one bad start against the Houston Astros — in which he gave up five earned runs — has jaded the public perception of what has otherwise been a decent start to the season for him. With that being said, his xERA remains on par with his actual ERA, which suggests that the current results are about what we should expect. His secondary pitches hampered German this season, namely the four-seam fastball, which has produced a +2 run-value this season. In his last outing, he went five innings and gave up three earned runs against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Weather
Be sure to monitor the gametime conditions with our MLB weather info.
Key injuries
Find our latest MLB injury reports.
Betting trend to know
The St Louis Cardinals are the only team to beat the Yankees three consecutive times this season, and the Mets will be aiming to come the second to do it tonight. Find more MLB betting trends for Mets vs. Yankees
Mets vs Yankees picks and predictions
Our side and total predictions are based upon our analysis of the line and total in this game. Our best bet is our favorite pick across all markets.
Moneyline analysis
Fade Max Scherzer. He's elite, a future Hall of Famer, but the barrel rate issue we've keyed in on is very much a red flag. The MLB average is 6.7%, and he sits at 9.2%, easily the highest of his career. So, I'm backing the Yankees today.
It's possible that the Yankees may not be "back," but regardless of what you think about them, you'd have to agree that their offense can't possibly be as bad as we've seen the last month.
Yesterday, against Cy Young candidate Alex Manoah, the Yankees scored as many runs in that one game as they did the entire series. Nothing has made much sense about their offense the last month, so that's just the perfect layer to add. This Yankees team fits the exact formula for what has caused Scherzer fits this season.
The Phillies and the Braves have had the most success against Scherzer this season. Atlanta got him for four earned runs in his last game and the Phillies tagged him for seven earned runs on 15 hits over 12 innings across two starts back in May. So what do those teams have in common? They both rank in the Top 10 of barrell rate with the Braves at one and the Phillies at seven. The Yankees come in second in that category even if they haven't looked like it lately.
Additionally, what I think bodes well — or as well as they can against a pitcher like Scherzer — is that the Yankees have a great chase contact rank. One of the elements of Scherzer's success is creating swings and misses on chases outside the zone. The Yankees can reduce some of that.
For German, I'm taking a chance that he can give a strong four or five innings and keep the Mets to two runs or less. That's what it will take. He provided that in his last outing against them that came in Flushing when he surrendered two runs while tossing just over four innings.
My projections say there's value in this number. I have it priced at +110, which is a sizable edge against the current number.
Prediction: Yankees moneyline (+140 at BetMGM)
Over/Under analysis
Oddsmakers have seemed to be right on the number whenever Scherzer is on the mound. Today is another example. Because of that, I'm looking at some alternative markets to get the job done here and I'll be targeting the Under on the Mets' team total in the first five innings.
My projections have the Mets scoring under 2.5 runs in the first five innings tonight around 70% of the time.
One of the first things I noticed when looking deeper into this matchup is that the Mets fare the worst against pitchers who produce an even amount of ground balls and fly balls. German does that with both hovering right around league average. Against those pitchers, the Mets slash numbers go down, having the lowest number of RBIs among the other pitching archetypes.
Another thing is they don't produce the same against pitchers that have issues with hard-hit balls vs. ground-ball-reliant ones. It's a strange situation, but the Mets excel in finding holes in the offense against ground-ball-reliant hitters and struggle against ones that give up many hard-hit drives. German does that.
I think this is a decent matchup for German, and I'm banking on him replicating his previous showing against this Mets team.
Prediction: Mets first five innings team total Under 2.5 (-150 at DraftKings)
Best bet
I'm backing the Yankees moneyline as my Best Bet tonight.
I feel like I'm one of the few unbiased baseball watchers still on this Yankees train. I see it as they were historically significant for a considerable period of the season, so you're going to see some extreme regression. Tonight, I love this buy-low spot on them. They've only lost to one team in three consecutive meetings this season, and that was the St. Louis Cardinals.
I'm backing them to respond to all the noise surrounding this rivalry and how things went in the first two games between the pair. And Scherzer may be giving the Mets too much of an edge among oddsmakers, so I'm looking for the best value I can find and this is it.
Pick: Yankees moneyline (+140 at BetMGM)
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