Atlanta decks Mets aces Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer
Max Scherzer of the Mets pitches during the first inning against Atlanta at Truist Park on Saturday in Atlanta. Credit: Getty Images/Todd Kirkland
ATLANTA
The lights went out for Max Scherzer at 9:25 p.m. Saturday. That’s when manager Buck Showalter appeared to retrieve the baseball from the Mets’ co-ace. Truist Park suddenly went dark, except for the 42,561 cellphone beams from another sellout crowd making chopping motions.
It was a freaky sight, and for these Mets, to have their multiple Cy Young Award winners pummeled like ordinary rotation fodder on consecutive nights, definitely a sobering one.
Scherzer, and Jacob deGrom before him, were supposed to be the Mets’ edge in this showdown series against Atlanta. Instead, they turned out to be batting practice tees as the defending champs used them to stage a longest-drive contest.
Scherzer failed to protect 1-0 and 2-1 leads before cracking in the fifth inning, when Dansby Swanson hammered a two-run homer that buried the Mets for good in the 4-2 loss, which dropped them a game behind Atlanta with four to play.
Swanson’s blast, a 432-foot rocket into the left-centerfield seats, was the most spectacular of the nine hits off Scherzer, but many were well struck, at high speeds. Same with deGrom the previous night, as the two allowed a combined 14 hits — seven for extra bases and five for monster home runs.
“It feels terrible,” Brandon Nimmo said. “Those are our guys. Those are our best shots. They stuffed them in our face. It doesn’t feel good. No, it doesn’t feel good at all. But we got to find a way to bounce back tomorrow and come and give it everything you got.”
The Mets’ quest for the NL East crown isn’t over. They still can keep the tiebreaker with a victory Sunday night, when Chris Bassitt becomes the next savior in line. The big picture, however, is more troubling. Scherzer and deGrom, the main weapons for any playoff run, looked way too vulnerable during these first two losses, which dropped the Mets to 10-10 in their combined starts since deGrom returned to the rotation on Aug. 2.
Showalter described Scherzer as “competitive,” but he was unable to complete six innings for only the fourth time this season and left with the Mets in a 4-2 hole. All told, Scherzer was tagged for four runs and two homers, the second from Matt Olson leading off the sixth inning.
“They’re really good,” Scherzer said. “I’m not here to take anything away from them. They got a great lineup, but if I execute my pitches, I feel like I can beat them. But if I don’t execute my pitches, they’re going to beat me, and there’s very thin room for error.”
At least deGrom had an excuse for bowing out after only 87 pitches. A blister popped on his right index finger that affected his location as well as his velocity. Still, deGrom’s recent performance has been worrisome — he has a 6.00 ERA in his last four starts — and the Mets won’t know for sure about the blister status until he next takes the mound, which could be as soon as Wednesday if the division title is undecided.
As for Scherzer, Saturday night was his biggest start in a Mets uniform, and he was able to dodge the defending world champs for only so long. He kept them scoreless until Austin Riley doubled and Olson singled him home to tie the score at 1 in the fourth inning.
It was downhill from there. With one out in the fifth, Ronald Acuna Jr. reached on a check-swing bloop single to rightfield and Swanson had an eight-pitch battle with Scherzer before drilling a full-count fastball into the seats to put Atlanta up 3-2. The next inning, Olson launched a fly ball that just reached the first row in rightfield. Two outs later, Scherzer was done.
As deflating as Friday night’s loss was for the Mets, seeing Scherzer beaten down was doubly humiliating for a team that arrived at Truist Park with a chance to clinch the NL East title on Atlanta’s home turf. Now it’s become a matter of survival. With their two aces reduced to rubble, the Mets need Bassitt to bail them out before returning to New York.
“We know we’re a good team,” Scherzer said. “As the saying goes, you’re only as good as your next day’s starting pitcher, and Bassitt’s been really good for us this year. So we need him to go out there and do his thing and we believe we can win.”
After the past two nights, their belief in deGrom and Scherzer may never be quite the same.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
