The Mets Have Nobody to Blame But Themselves for Their Starting Pitching Debacle

New York tried to get cute with its first three starters. Now, it’s one loss away from a more than promising season ending in heartbreak.

NEW YORK — After two days of obfuscation, arrogance and general nonsense, the Mets’ players made clear on Friday what Mets manager Buck Showalter refused to say: Jacob deGrom will start Game 2 of the National League wild card series.

Showalter said on Thursday that the team would decide its Game 2 starter based on the outcome of Game 1. He did not elaborate, but even a casual observer could understand that the idea would be to maximize New York’s one-two punch: Win Game 1 with co-ace Max Scherzer, use No. 3 starter Chris Bassitt to try to sweep the Padres in two games and keep deGrom, the other ace, available to start either a winner-take-all Game 3 or, ideally, Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers.

Well, all that gamesmanship doesn’t do you much good if the first ace gets knocked out. By the time Scherzer trudged off the mound with two outs in the fifth, seven Padres having crossed home plate, the boos of 41,621 enraged fans providing the soundtrack, the outcome was all but decided. The Padres would win 7–1.

Maybe the Mets should have spent less time outsmarting the Padres and more time outplaying them. Instead, a week after having a chance to seize the NL East and avoid this series entirely, New York faces the possibility that its season will be over before the weekend is.

The Mets did not exactly choke away the 10 ½ game division lead they held as late as June 1, but they controlled their destiny leading into last weekend’s three-game series against a searing-hot Atlanta team. They lined up their top three in the correct order: deGrom, Scherzer, Bassitt. Those three permitted 11 runs in 14 ⅓ innings. They got swept. Six days later, all they have to show for their 101-win season, the second-best in franchise history, is a chance to stave off winter for one more day.

Let’s not place all the blame on Scherzer, who seemed baffled afterward that his four-seamer, which usually rides, or appears to rise, instead seemed to break to his arm side and down. It was easily his worst postseason start and tied for his worst start of any kind since 2014. He became the first pitcher since 1939 to allow four homers and seven runs in a playoff game. He said he is not injured.

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“I thought I made the right—I had a feel for what was going on in the Atlanta start,” he said. “I thought I made the adjustment to get me right. That's why I can't—tonight I don't know why the fastball ran. I don't know why I didn't have my good fastball, the way I can usually pitch and locate. There's just several fastballs I watched tonight where the fastball almost looked like it was sinking versus having ride. Yeah, this is going to be a late night for me.”

It should be a late night for the lineup, too, which will face San Diego's No. 2, lefty Blake Snell. On Friday, New York’s hitters did their part to end the season early, going 1–11 with runners in scoring position. (That one did not score the run; their only run came on an Eduardo Escobar home run with the game already decided.) Yu Darvish dazzled them, throwing at least seven different pitches (two distinct cutters, a four-seamer, a slider, a sinker, a curveball and a splitter, and there maybe have been a few more variations sprinkled in) and holding them to one run over seven innings, but they did have chances: In each of the first two frames a runner reached third base with fewer than two outs. Both times he was still there when the inning ended. They left eight men on base.

As he watched the frailty unfold, deGrom began readying himself emotionally for the Game 2 start. He said that he was on board with the plan—the deGrom deLay, we might call it—and that the blister he said bothered him against Atlanta had completely healed. The team seems to agree; Showalter and general manager Billy Eppler did not carry a fourth starter, either of righties Taijuan Walker or Carlos Carrasco, as insurance.

Time will tell whether that decision was right. The decision to get cute with the first three starters clearly wasn’t. The Mets committed one of baseball’s cardinal postseason sins: They started trying to win Game 2 before they won Game 1. Then they lost Game 1. Now they have to hope there’s a Game 3.