QUEENS — The schedule is strengthening and apparently, so are the New York Mets.
Max Scherzer and four relievers combined for a two-hit shutout while Jeff McNeil and Francisco Lindor each delivered two-run doubles as the Mets (6-5) defeated the San Diego Padres 5-0 on Monday night at Citi Field in the first installment of last year’s NL Wild Card Series rematch.
Scherzer overcame a shaky start and three early walks to put together his finest outing of the young season after beginning the season with a 6.35 ERA and four home runs allowed over his first two starts. Outdueling Padres ace Yu Darvish, he yielded just one hit through five scoreless innings while striking out three.
“I’ll always say I want to go deeper,” Scherzer said. “It’s tough to say [you’re happy] when you only pitch five innings but they did a good job of grinding me. The team got the win. So any time the team wins, I’m happy.”
Darvish, who owned a 2.56 career regular-season ERA against the Mets across eight starts and shut them down in Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series, was tagged for five runs on six hits over 6.1 innings pitched.
Scherzer was battling with some control issues that found him in some early trouble. He walked three in the first three innings, including a free pass to Rougned Odor to lead off the third. The former Yankee ultimately found himself on third with one out after a Tomas Nido error throwing behind the runner at first and a groundout.
“I feel like I had cases of the ‘just-misses’ tonight,” Scherzer said. “I was just missing with that fastball and it got me in some bad counts and it allowed them to grind me apart. That’s why my pitch count got high.”
But the veteran righty managed to battle through, striking out Trent Grisham before getting Manny Machado to pop out to third.
“I was able to avoid the big hit,” Scherzer said. “I was able to sequence well enough and had all my off-speed pitches going so every off-speed pitch really had good shape.”
The Mets reclaimed from two-out magic from last season and gave Scherzer a lead in the bottom half of the frame. Following a Brandon Nimmo single and a Lindor hit-by-pitch, McNeil took a first-pitch sweeper from Darvish and pulled a double down the line to score a pair.
“That felt really good,” McNeil said. “I feel like we’ve been kind of missing out on that big-time hit so it’s nice to deliver and get two runs.”
Scherzer bore down for his best stretch of the night. He set down Juan Soto, Xander Bogaerts, and Matt Carpenter in order in the fourth. Ha-Seong Kim broke up his no-hitter with one out in the fifth, but the ace got Odor to pop out to Nido and struck out Austin Nola swinging.
The only issue was that the punchout of Nola took 11 pitches, raising his total to 97 on the night and ultimately ending his night there.
“They made him work,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said. “I don’t think it was a product of poor command. I just think they did a great job of grinding him.”
John Curtiss and Drew Smith worked around walks to get through the sixth and seventh, respectively — the latter getting help by a running catch in center field by Nimmo on an Austin Nola liner that looked destined for the gap. With a runner on first and two outs, it would have potentially driven in a run.
The Mets would ultimately drive Darvish from the game in the seventh inning while nabbing some insurance in bizarre fashion.
After a lead-off Mark Canha double, Luis Guillorme’s sacrifice bunt up the third-base line toed the chalk of fair territory after kicking off the grass of the basepath and rolled roughly 30 feet before coming to a stop at the feet of Machado to put runners at the corner.
Canha scored on an Eduardo Escobar sacrifice fly to make it 3-0 before a Nido squibber up that very same third-base line did exactly what Guillorme’s bunt did — rolling just inside fair territory and resting on the chalk as Machado could only watch in disgust.
“They ended up in a similar spot, too,” Showalter said. “Great job by our groundskeeper. That’s what it’s supposed to do when it’s leveled right.”
“Whatever works,” Nido joked.
Darvish was given the hook and Lindor capitalized on New York’s good fortune, beaming a two-RBI double down the left-field line to clear the bases and put the hosts up 5-0.
David Robertson mowed down the Padres in order in the eighth before Adam Ottavino yielded San Diego’s second hit of the night, but no more.
