At the expense of New York Mets ace Max Scherzer, the San Diego Padres lived to their nickname of “Slam Diego” in Game 1 of the National League wild-card series on Friday night.
Scherzer surrendered four home runs over his 4 2/3 innings of work, the last of which came off the bat of playoff villain Manny Machado and knocked the right-handed pitcher out of the game.
It was a calamitous outing for Scherzer and one that made Mets franchise postseason history for all the wrong reasons. It was the first time the Mets had allowed four round-trippers in a playoff game, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, who cited ESPN Stats and Info.
There were plenty of other statistics to illustrate just how out of the norm this performance was from Scherzer, who let up only 13 homers in the regular season across 145 1/3 innings pitched. Scherzer became just the second pitcher in Major League Baseball history to give up four dingers and seven runs in a playoff game, per ESPN Stats and Info. That historically bad feat hadn’t been done since the 1939 World Series.
Needing more evidence that this was Scherzer’s worst postseason start of his career? The seven runs allowed by the 2019 World Series champ with the Washington Nationals were the most he’s surrendered in a postseason game in his career.
It was without a doubt an ugly showing from Scherzer with the Mets falling into a 7-0 hole. And for Scherzer, he might just have to wait until next year to get a shot at redemption.
