Max Scherzer gives best performance as a Met in blowout victory over Astros – The Denver Post

HOUSTON — A series that looked like a clash of the titans before the season started looked more like a race to the bottom by the time it began. The Mets came into Houston to face the defending World Series champion Astros this week having lost 11 of their last 14 games, but the Astros came in riding a similar streak, losing nine of their last 12.

How the mighty have fallen.

Still, the Astros can’t be discounted. So if this series is a litmus test of sorts, then the Mets have passed the first part. Behind a eight-inning dominant performance by Max Scherzer, the Mets defeated the Astros, 11-1, on Monday at Minute Maid Park.

“It was big for the team, but the satisfaction he’s going to get from that is what he did for our bullpen,” said manager Buck Showalter. “There was a real need for him to get deep in that game and for him to go eight innings was pretty special in a lot of ways. It was good to see.”

Scherzer (6-2) held Houston to only a single run — a solo shot by Yainer Diaz in the seventh inning — on four hits over eight innings. Before Diaz’s home run, Scherzer hadn’t allowed a runner past second base. He walked only one and struck out eight, lowering his ERA by 41 points to 4.04. It was his most efficient start of the year and the first time he’s gone past seven innings since signing with the Mets. The last time he got through eight, he was still a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers (September 12, 2021).

“Those guys have been getting stepped on a lot. It’s our job to be able to go out there and pitch deep,” Scherzer said of the team’s relief corps. “Frankly, I haven’t been doing that the last couple of starts. So to be able to go out there and get deep into a ballgame to keep some of those guys out of the game and give them a day off, those guys need it.”

Scherzer’s slider failed him against the Yankees last week, but it was back in a big way against the Astros (39-34). He threw it 31 times and the Astros put 18 swings on it. They whiffed on seven of them. The home run to Diaz was the only slider he really missed with.

Scherzer made a change to his changeup after his start in Atlanta two turns ago and tried to apply the same adjustment to his slider. It didn’t work, so he’s gone back to the old way of throwing his slider.

“Well, that adjustment to my slider screwed everything up for the Yankees start,” Scherzer said. “I just went back and undid that change and that’s it.”

He was able to utilize all of his pitches, which he felt was key.

“When I can pitch with that pitch, it allows me to use the other pitches well,” he said. “[Catcher Francisco Alvarez] did a good job of sequencing the curveball and sequencing the changeup.”

The Mets (34-38) spotted Scherzer five runs when Hunter Brown (6-4) imploded in the third. Daniel Vogelbach and Francisco Lindor both homered in the inning, with Lindor’s going for three runs. It was the second home run in the last four days for Vogelbach, but just his fourth of the season.

For Lindor, it was his 14th. The Mets were already up 2-0 when Lindor, who was batting from the left side, took a fastball inside and lifted it into the right field seats.

Lindor later hit a two-run double off Shawn Dubin, a right-hander from Allegany, New York, who made his major league debut. It came in the top of the ninth to push the game out of reach for the Astros and allowed a beleaguered Mets bullpen to save its crucial late-game arms. The Mets eventually ended up scoring five off Dubin in the ninth.

Grant Hartwig made his big league debut in the bottom of the ninth and it went much better than Dubin’s. The right-hander threw a scoreless ninth with the help of a 6-3 double play turned by Luis Guillorme.

Lindor went 2-for-5 with five RBI. Starling Marte went 2-for-5 with one RBI and two runs scored and Tommy Pham continued his hot streak going 2-for-4 with a leadoff double in the sixth. Jeff McNeil drove him in with an RBI single. His single in the eighth scored Lindor. Pham has now hit safely in 10 of his last 11 games.

Brown was charged with a season-high six earned runs on seven hits over 5 2/3 innings.

After weeks of back-and-forth battles, extra-inning losses, sloppy errors and comebacks that fell short, the Mets finally played the way they envisioned: A dominant pitching performance from one of the game’s best and a lineup that forced a winning pitcher to exit the game early.

“It feels good to be able to score early and continue to score,” Lindor said.

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