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Mets vs. Giants: Pitching Misery Meets Offensive Drought at Oracle Park

April 2 | Oracle Park | 9:45 PM EDT

On paper, Thursday night's matchup between the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants looks like a pitcher's duel. In reality, it's closer to two struggling arms stumbling into a game where neither offense has shown any life lately — and that combination makes for a compelling case that the early innings stay quiet.

Start with the pitching. Robbie Ray carries a respectable 3.65 ERA into this one, but his last three starts have been a different story entirely. A 7.90 ERA over that recent stretch signals something is clearly off, whether it's command, velocity, or simply a rough patch in a long season. He's walking a tightrope right now, and Oracle Park's marine layer can be forgiving — but it doesn't fix the mechanical issues that tend to inflate those numbers.

David Peterson isn't walking into San Francisco with much confidence either. His 4.22 ERA looks passable until you zoom in on recent form, where he's posted an eye-popping 11.12 ERA over his last three starts. That's not a slump — that's a crisis. Peterson has had genuine stretches of effectiveness in his career, but right now hitters appear to be solving him fairly quickly, which makes the first five innings particularly dangerous territory for the Mets.

The offensive backdrop only adds to the intrigue. San Francisco has been virtually silent over the last five games, averaging just 0.33 runs per game during a three-game losing skid. That's historically bad offensive production — barely a whisper at the plate. The Mets haven't been much better, averaging 1.67 runs per game across their own two-game slide. Neither team is swinging hot bats heading into this one.

What's most telling is how those recent scoring patterns align with the first five innings specifically. Both clubs have followed the under through their F5 results over this same stretch, with San Francisco going scoreless early in three straight and New York doing the same across two consecutive outings. When two teams this cold face starting pitchers this shaky, the logical expectation might be fireworks — but the data doesn't support that narrative right now. Weak offenses grinding against inconsistent arms often produce slow, grinding games rather than early explosions.

With the market total set at 7.0, the under has real texture here, but the story most supported by what we're seeing is that the first inning specifically stays clean.

The call: No Run First Inning. Both the offensive drought and the pitching instability on either side point toward a quiet opening frame to kick off this one at Oracle Park.