ICE cold right now. This hasn’t been a fun week, but the grind continues. This is more heavily juiced than I’d prefer, but with the rough variance lately, I’m sticking to the basics and just trying to get one through the hoop. This is a really good spot for the Mets after dropping yesterday’s game. A lot of this bet comes down to not buying into what we’ve seen from Eduardo Rodriguez so far. On the surface, Rodriguez looks like he’s turning a corner as he hasn’t allowed a run through his first 12 innings and had a strong WBC, but when you dig deeper, this feels a lot more like variance than some true breakout. He’s getting a massive drop in BABIP from .329 down to .229, which just isn’t sustainable. The underlying numbers aren’t overly impressive, with just a 10.9% K-BB rate and an 8.2% swinging strike rate. That’s not the profile of a guy I’m trusting long term, especially when we’ve seen his peripherals sit below average over a full season as recently as last year. On the other side, I really like Nolan McLean. His stuff is legit and his velocity is up from last year. He currently has a 2.61 ERA with a 2.29 xERA after ending last season with a 2.06 ERA and a 2.78 xFIP. Arizona has been chasing a ton at the plate and has also been significantly worse away from home. They have a .385 SLG and .670 OPS at home, but just a .345 SLG and .628 OPS on the road, and they’re just 1-4 straight up away from home. Arizona’s offense as a whole hasn’t been great. Outside of their top three guys, there isn’t much here that scares me, especially against a pitcher with McLean’s arsenal. The Mets bullpen is in a good spot after using essentially no arms last night. They’ll have Williams, Weaver, Brazoban, and Raley all ready to go today. The Mets bullpen is third in ERA while the Diamondbacks sit at 26th with terrible expected metrics. Overall, I just think the Mets have the advantage in every area today. I like New York to get a bounce back win.