The Mets’ season will be on the line Sunday in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series after they were routed 7-1 by the San Diego Padres at Citi Field on Saturday night.
For that matter, the Mets will have to win the next two games to survive this best-of-three series and advance to the NLDS.
Buck Showalter will now be forced to pitch Jacob deGrom in Game 2, ending the speculation that he was hoping to hold deGrom out until a potential Game 1 of the series with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He’ll be matched up against Padres’ lefty Blake Snell.
The Mets are now 2-5 against the Padres this season.
Here are the takeaways...
- It was one thing for Max Scherer to look like less than an ace, as he did against the Braves last week. This time he looked more like a journeyman as he took a beating from the Padres that included four home runs in 4.2 innings.
Stunning, to be sure.
Josh Bell took him deep in the first inning, a two-out, two-run bomb to left-center on a 3-and-1 fastball that was pretty much right down the middle, giving the Padres a 2-0 lead.
And then in the second inning, Trent Grisham squared up another fastball and pulled it way over the right-field fence to make it 3-0.
Finally, in the fourth inning, Jurickson Profar turned on a fat cutter and pulled it down the right-field line for a three-run home run, and Manny Machado delivered the final blow, hitting a laser over the left-field wall on another fastball.
And that was that for Scherzer, whose stuff was so mediocre that you can’t help but wonder whether he is limited by the oblique issue that put him on the Injured List twice this season. Last week he indicated to FOX’s Ken Rosenthal that he was still protecting it to some degree, and though Scherzer said on Thursday that he wasn’t limited at all, his performance offered reason to believe otherwise.
In any case, his numbers from the last two starts are staggering: 10.1 innings, 16 hits, 11 earned runs, and six home runs.
Scherzer had never allowed more than two home runs in any of his previous 21 postseason starts.
- Yu Darvish continued his domination of the Mets in 2022, shutting them down for the third time this season.
The Padres’ righthander gave up one run over seven innings, and for the season he allowed two runs in 21 innings against the Mets while going 3-0.
This time the Mets had chances early to change the script, especially in the first inning when a hit-by-pitch to Francisco Lindor and a Jeff McNeil single put runners at first and third with one out.
Down 2-0 at the time the Mets desperately needed to get on the scoreboard and put pressure on Darvish. However, Pete Alonso took a called third strike on a 91-mph cutter right down the middle for the second out and Daniel Vogelbach flied out to right field to end the inning.
In the second inning, Starling Marte singled and then stole second and third with one out but Eduardo Escobar struck out swinging and Tomas Nido flied deep to center.
- Marte played all nine innings in his first game back from his broken finger, indicating that he could deal with whatever pain lingered from the injury, and making it seem likely he’ll be in the lineup again for Game 2.
Showalter was cautious about Marte’s return, hitting him in the No. 6 spot in the lineup rather than his customary No. 2 spot.
However, Marte alleviated any concerns by singling hard up the middle and then stealing both second and third base. In his other at-bats, he got jammed on a ground ball to first base, made decent contact while flying out to right, and got an infield single on a comebacker off pitcher Luis Garcia’s glove.
- Eduardo Escobar was the bright spot for the Mets offensively, putting the Mets on the board with the fifth-inning home run to right and then doubling to right in the seventh inning.
For the game, the Mets went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. Their only hit was McNeil’s single to right with Lindor on second, but Lindor was held at third on the play.