We had Casey Stern on our Down on the Korner zoom cast before tonight’s game. The common theme of the cast is that if the Mets are going to improve, it’s up to the players in the room. There’s nobody that Billy Eppler is going to bring in that is going to save the season that is going to cost anything less than the prospects that the Mets have worked so hard to protect. It’s up to the players that are already on the team, and paramount among those players is Max Scherzer.
Casey Stern is smart, and prescient.
Max Scherzer was absolutely brilliant in his first start in Houston since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series. He went 8 innings and gave up one run on four hits and a walk, and struck out eight. The amazing part is that he did this all in 91 pitches. Until Yanier Diaz broke up the shutout in the 7th with a homer, there was a very real possibility that he was going to twirl “The Maddux“.
The difference was his slider, the same pitch he hung to Giancarlo Stanton and D.J. LeMahieu against the Yankees in his last start. It was sharp tonight, and the undermanned Astros could barely touch it for six innings.
Max Scherzer, Wicked Sliders. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/wmx4ThxaFW
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 20, 2023
Everything else fell into place for Max as he gave the rest of the team got a chance to breathe without being down 2-0 like they have been seemingly every single game. They returned the favor with a five run third inning highlighted by home runs by Daniel Vogelbach (solo) and Francisco Lindor (three run). The former of which continued the most unlikely of renaissances, the latter perhaps a sign that Lindor’s struggles could be attribted to anxieties related to the impending birth of a newborn child. (I’ve done extensive research into the lives of baseball players and have come up with the following conclusion: They’re human beings just like the rest of us.)
Vogey’s three RBI and Lindor’s five highlighted five run innings in the third and ninth as the Mets took the quiet car to an 11-1 victory over the Astros, themselves losers of five straight and without their most feared hitter. Max Scherzer was the key tonight, as he faced a team wearing their Space City jerseys, yet he was the one who Space Cowboy’d up. If he could only do it with a little more consistency, the Mets might still make a run at a good season yet. Tonight would make for a hell of a start.
Max Scherzer talks about the adjustments he made after his start against the Yankees: pic.twitter.com/DsTideaWmu
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 20, 2023
Today’s Hate List
- Jeff Luhnow
- John Copollela
- John Mozeliak
- AJ Preller
- Jim Bowden
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