New York at Tampa Bay

The Mets snuck out a 3-2 win over Tampa Bay last night, riding the best start of the year from 36-year-old Robert Stock, who worked into the sixth inning without allowing a run, and closing it out with Kodai Senga's fifth straight save. That's a club sitting 14 games under .500 taking the opener from a first-place Tampa Bay team, and tonight they get another shot at it. Justin Hagenman gets the ball for New York in his first big-league appearance of the year, a wildcard against a Rays lineup that managed only two runs last night. On paper, this still looks lopsided, but the board isn't asking the Mets to be the better team over the course of a season. It's asking them to win one more game, and they've already shown they can do it once this week. Tampa Bay's margin for error just shrank after dropping the opener to a team it should be beating running away, and the price on New York still pays a real number. New York is the moneyline play tonight, and after taking game one of this set, I don't expect the class gap to show up on the scoreboard again.