The New York Mets took an important first game of the series on Monday afternoon and the team will look to continue its good play over the Washington Nationals and Max Scherzer as the Mets look to inch closer towards that second Wild Card seed.

The stolen slugger J.D. Davis is not only mashing the baseball out of the earth’s atmosphere, he’s doing it with a .301 batting average to go along with .880 OPS and 18 home runs with 49 RBI’s in 345 at-bats. With the likes of Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil anchoring the offense, Davis has been causing damage in a very low-key manner.

Washington Nationals starting pitcher Max Scherzer is still healing from a back injury that took place right after the All-Star break, and instead of going to one of Washington’s Minor League affiliates, Scherzer opted to rehab while pitching against other Major League teams. This is only his third start from returning from the Injured List and it’s expected that Scherzer will have his pitches limited to a count.

That doesn’t bode too well for the Nationals as the New York Mets will have their reigning and defending National League Cy Young award winner Jacob deGrom on the hill in efforts to take the game, as well as series. deGrom is 3-1 with an ERA of 1.72 in his last trips to the mound. Overall, the Florida native is 8-8 with a 2.66 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and has struck out 214 batters in 169.0 innings pitched.

Tonight’s game will take place in Washington D.C.’s Nationals Park with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 PM EST. The game will be televised on SNY as well as in front of a national audience on MLB Network.