Baseball Can Be Beautiful

We’ve probably forgotten this, but baseball can be beautiful. When you take out the context of the season as a viewer, it’s easy to appreciate the intense competitive nature of Max Scherzer and realize that baseball, at its most beautiful, can be really intense and slightly uncomfortable.

Scherzer said after the game, where he threw a season high 107 pitches in part because he lobbied to stay in after the fifth inning, that he was more worried about process than result. But he also acknowledge that this team needs wins. So who knows if Scherzer had the luxury of removing the context of the season during his outing. He knew how important it was for him to be the stopper. He had to know, as you can tell during today’s game that Scherzer’s intensity was raised to the caricature of what we all assume Scherzer to be while he’s pitching: a lunatic.

During the fifth inning, Jeremy Hefner came out to the mound for a visit with Scherzer. Max was animated. At who? Who knows. Could have been Hefner. Could have been the umpire. Didn’t much matter. Scherzer was locked in the way we know he can be, and that’s a good thing. He faced Bryce Harper with two outs after that mound visit after he had already given up another multiple run lead. Harper has had success against Scherzer, so this game could have gone sideways right then and there. But Max dug deep, as he was in that zone. Struck out Harper to end the inning, and then immediately lobbied for another inning.

Max Scherzer was NOT coming out of the game 👀 pic.twitter.com/MC0NAstYE0

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) June 24, 2023

After the Mets took a 4-2 lead thanks in part to Starling Marte (who was another star of this game with his first inning home run and his leadoff hit to get the 6th inning rally started), Scherzer got that 6th inning. Got a diouble play to end that inning from Alec Bohm (who if you read my game preview this afternoon you would have known that Bohm has hit well off Scherzer) to end the inning. Scherzer then went to dugout and gave some very intense high fives in the dugout.

High fives for Max Scherzer after 6 innings of 2-run ball 🤝 pic.twitter.com/CmQ2i8JFaX

— SNY (@SNYtv) June 24, 2023

(Editor’s note: I wish SNY had tweeted the other angle of this, as you could feel the intensity a little bit more.)

After Scherzer’s six innings of grit and grind, it was up to David Robertson, who was asked to come in for a five out save with the winning run at the plate in the 8th, Bryson Stott, with two runners on. I have to admit that I wasn’t feeling good at that point. Asking any closer for a five out save is dicey. In that ballpark with the way things were going for the Mets? If Robertson had turned that game into a Phillies Classic, it would have been the most demoralizing loss in a season full of them, and that’s saying a lot.

But Roberston got Stott to ground into a double play to end that inning, then he got Josh Harrison to ground into a double play to end the 9th and the game. Scherzer, Marte, and Robertson came up with some clutch performances in a game that will hopefully mean something down the road. But even if it doesn’t (and let’s face it, chances are more likely than not that it won’t), it’s nice to experience the beauty of baseball that isn’t always about outer beauty like majoestic home runs, 102 mph fastball thrown with ease, and “swag”. Sometimes it’s about the inner beauty that lies in the grit and grind, the intensity, the desperation. The Mets brought that today. And for one game in and of itself, it was beautiful.