Earth is traveling slower than mercury but it is still moving fast, 30 kilometres per second. It is possible to meet the planet in it's path but the sun's gravity would interfere in the rendezvous. Mercury is 3 times closer to the sun than Earth although it has a highly elliptical orbit and can be as far as 70 million kilometres from the sun.
Sources :
Book: The Planets by Professor Brian Cox
Website: https://science.nasa.gov/mercury/
Website: Wikipedia