The night Max Scherzer no-hit the Mets
Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals celebrates his no-hitter against the Mets at Citi Field on October 3, 2015. Credit: Getty Images/Al Bello
Every time Max Scherzer takes the mound, the possibility of something special happening exists. That’s one reason the Mets are paying him $130 million over three years.
Perhaps the most special pitching performance of Scher- zer’s career took place against the Mets. It was Oct. 3, 2015, the last Saturday of the regular season, and Scherzer turned in what some analysts consider the second-best pitching performance in baseball history.
In the second game of a doubleheader, Scherzer no-hit the Mets on that blustery Saturday in front of an announced crowd of 41,480 at Citi Field.
Scherzer didn’t walk anyone and struck out 17. The only baserunner was Kevin Pla- wecki, who reached on a throwing error by third baseman Yunel Escobar in the sixth inning.
“He was great,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “We were bad.”
Using a metric known as Game Score devised by baseball stats guru Bill James in which 50 is an average start, Scherzer’s outing scored 104.
The only start in big-league history that graded higher was Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout, no-walk, one-hit masterpiece for the Cubs against Houston on May 6, 1988. That earned a 105.
In the Mets’ defense, they were playing out the regular season and getting ready for a postseason that would lead to a World Series appearance.
Yoenis Cespedes, Daniel Murphy, Lucas Duda and David Wright were not in the starting lineup, though all but Wright would pinch hit.
In the ninth inning, Scherzer struck out Cespedes and Duda (the latter was Scherzer’s ninth strikeout in a row, all of them swinging, which was one short of Tom Seaver’s all-time record) and got Curtis Granderson on a pop-up to third.
Scherzer was mobbed by his teammates. The Nationals’ season ended the next day.
“It’s been a disappointing season for the team, no doubt about it,” Scherzer said. “That’s why this is bittersweet.”
According to a 2020 article by Mark Simon for www.sportsinfosolutions.com, Scherzer’s nine half-innings took a total of 37 minutes, 7 seconds. The entire 2-0 Nationals victory took 2:14. Scherzer threw 109 pitches, 80 for strikes. Of the Mets’ 28 batters, only 11 put the ball in play.
It was Scherzer’s second no-hitter of the season. On June 20 against the Pirates, he threw perfect ball for 8 2⁄3 innings before hitting Jose Tabata with a pitch (Tabata appeared to lean into the ball). Scherzer retired Josh Harrison on a fly ball for his first career no-hitter.
Scherzer struck out 10 and didn’t walk anyone in that one. His game score of 97 was actually three points lower than the 100 he earned in his previous start, when he was perfect for the first six innings in a one-hit, one-walk, 16-strikeout shutout against Milwaukee.
Scherzer is the fifth pitcher with two no-hitters in one season. The others: Johnny VanderMeer back-to-back in 1938; Allie Reynolds, 1951; Virgil Trucks, 1952; Nolan Ryan, 1973.
Scherzer, who went 14-12 with a 2.79 ERA in 2015, finished fifth in voting for the NL Cy Young Award, which was won by Jake Arrieta of the Cubs.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
