Mandatory Credit: Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports
Max Scherzer introduced himself to the Mets faithful with a brilliant performance in his home debut against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night. After taking the opening game of the double header earlier in the day, thanks to a walk-off hit from Francisco Lindor in extra innings, Scherzer was able to put on a show in the nightcap.
“Working with [Tomas] Nido, I felt like we had much better rhythm tonight. I was executing pitches at a much higher clip. I was able to pitch with a high fastball and the cutter as well,” Scherzer said.
The 37-year-old pitcher began the game off by striking out Mike Yastrzemski on a 95 MPH four-seam fastball near the top of the zone. Scherzer did the same thing to Brandon Belt, fanning the Giants first baseman with an elevated 88 MPH cutter. Darin Ruf capped off a scoreless top of the first for the starter with a groundout to Lindor at shortstop.
Scherzer retired the next five Giants before giving up a walk to Curt Casali in the top of the third. The right-hander stranded the runner, closing the book on the inning by getting Yastrzemski on a fly out to left field. The eight-time All-Star made quick work of the Giants hitters in the fourth and fifth innings, retiring each of the six hitters.
With two outs in the top of the sixth, it seemed as if Scherzer was inching closer to getting within nine outs on a historical night at Citi Field. But consecutive walks to Yastrzemski and Belt put some more pressure on. With a runner in scoring position, the Giants finally got on the board through Ruf. The outfielder went down and even out of the zone to connect on an 82 MPH changeup, striking a single that would get Yastrzemski in from second base.
The Giants first hit of the night made it a 3-1 game in favor of the Mets, but that would be all that could muster against Scherzer in the sixth. He escaped the inning with no more trouble by getting Joc Pederson to pop out to Eduardo Escobar at third base.
The right-hander went back out for the top of the seventh after surrendering his no-hitter and shutout in the previous inning. Scherzer set the Giants down in order, finishing off his outing with a strikeout of Steven Duggar on an 80 MPH changeup, painting the pitch on the outside corner.
His final line was seven innings, one hit, one run, three walks and 10 strikeouts on 102 pitches. No Mets starter has gone deeper into a game so far this season than Scherzer did against Giants.
“He’s engaged. He’s into competing. He likes to compete and he expects the guys playing in his game to compete too. They like playing behind him,” Buck Showalter said about Scherzer.
Scherzer now has 105 games throughout his career in which he has struck out at least ten, which ranks fifth all-time. Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez are the only other starters to have met that mark more.
Through three starts with the Mets, Scherzer is 3-0 with a 2.50 ERA and a 0.80 WHIP in 18 innings of work. He was able to stay resilient and battle through his first two starts of the year, but the right hander was dominant from start to finish against the Giants.
