The aspirations of the fans of the New York Mets were considerably deflated Friday night in their stadium after seeing how the man who was called to guide them to the top of baseball was beaten in the most important game of the year for them.
Max Scherzer, signed by the Mets with a salary of $43.3 million dollars that is the highest in the Major Leagues in 2022, was mistreated by the Padres of San Diego, who hit him with four home runs for seven runs. The home team could not recover from that in a 7-1 loss.
The National League wild card series, the best of three games under the new MLB playoff format, now has San Diego one win away from advancing to the next round, where the Los Angeles Dodgers are already waiting to meet rival
Game 2 is this Saturday at Citi Field at 7:37 pm ET. Jacob deGrom could be the starting pitcher for New York against Ian Snell. If the Mets win, the decider would be Sunday, also in Queens.
The sensational atmosphere in Mets stadium soon began to die down because in the same first inning Max Scherzer was rocked by Josh Bell’s home run to left field, driving down a baserunner to make it 2-0.
An inning later, Trent Grisham found another lob from Scherzer and sent it over the right-field fence for a 3-0 lead.
But the hit that really silenced the crowd and pretty much decided the game came in the fifth inning.. Ha-Seong Kim had started the inning with a single and after one out Austin Nola grounded twice to right. Then Jurickson Profar came to bat.
The Curacao-born player, who had started the game with a single on Scherzer’s first pitch, ambushed him again by throwing on the first shot, sending the home run ball just into the right corner for 6-0.
Scherzer, who missed several weeks of the season with an injury, hadn’t allowed more than two home runs in his previous 26 postseason appearances.
Two batters later, Manny Machado put in the clinch with a line drive to left for the Padres’ fourth home run. Scherzer left immediately after 4.2 innings pitched with the score 7-0 against him.
According to ESPN data, this is only the second time a pitcher has allowed 7 runs and 4 home runs in a playoff game. It would have been impossible to imagine that pitcher would be Scherzer, one of the best pitchers of his generation.
The Mets could never figure out the pitching of Japan’s Yu Darvish, who looked in complete control. The only run he gave up was on a home run by Eduardo Escobar in the fifth inning. In 7 innings he spaced 6 hits, with 4 strikeouts and 1 walk.
In the other games of the day, Cleveland beat Tampa Bay 2-1, Philadelphia got up off the canvas against St. Louis to win 6-3 and Seattle shut out Toronto 4-0.