Max Scherzer didn't quite look like himself on Wednesday. Yes, he gutted through five innings and allowed just one run on five hits, striking out seven, but at the start of that outing, Scherzer found himself in a bases-loaded, one-out jam courtesy of three walks.
Keep in mind, Scherzer's BB/9 ratio has only been above 3.0 once in the last 11 seasons, let alone a BB per inning ratio, so it was clear something was off. Thankfully for Max, he got a strikeout and groundout to escape the jam, and after the start, he revealed that it was indeed his balky hamstring that had him "a tick" off in the first inning – although not in the way you'd expect.
"It wasn't that I was too strong. It's that I was actually had my leg underneath me now," Scherzer said. "I felt good out there, and so it was kinda recalibrating everything back to when you actually feel good. I had got in rhythm pitching throttled down last start, so I had to ramp up to full go. I had a case of the just misses in the first inning. Wasn't executing, and ran into some long counts, but was able to keep it from spiraling out of control."
Scherzer retired eight in a row after allowing the third walk – sort of, as Bryson Stott did single, but was thrown out trying to stretch into a double in the third – and he almost escaped a jam with runners on the corners and no one out in the fourth, striking out two batters before a single off the glove of Francisco Lindor got Philly on the board.
And clearly, the hammy was fine by then.
"It's not an issue. I feel good," Scherzer said. "Warming up it was like, 'wow, I can actually pitch with this leg again,' and I had to sort of re-calibrate and I was just a little off in my execution. But I made big pitches when I needed to."
The bullpen gave up a few in the final four innings, but the offense backed Scherzer up, led by Pete Alonso's three extra-base hit, five-RBI day. The Mets have scored 27 runs in their five wins, and only even been outscored 9-6 in their two losses, and Scherzer is happy with the way it's come together early.
"We've done a lot of good things here to start the season. We've done good things on the mound, we're doing good things at the plate," Scherzer said. "That's how you win ball games: playing team baseball."
Even with Scherzer giving up three runs in his first start last Friday, the Mets' rotation has allowed just five earned runs in 35 innings (and make it five in 39 if you count David Peterson piggybacking the injured Taijuan Walker Monday), so that's started in the rotation, whose collective mindset is something Scherzer put bluntly:
"You show up and try to go 1-0 every day."
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