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Max Scherzer has started just about every kind of high-profile game imaginable, so the chances he will be fazed by his Subway Series debut Wednesday night are roughly zero percent.
“It brings a sense of relief to have that kind of caliber of player in your locker room and healthy and out on the field and pitching for us,” J.D. Davis said Tuesday before the Mets faced the Yankees at Citi Field.
In Jacob deGrom’s absence, Scherzer has carried the “ace” title in the Mets’ rotation and pitched about as well as the team could have hoped for after he arrived last offseason on a three-year contract worth $130 million.
In 12 starts this season, Scherzer is 6-2 with a 2.28 ERA and 98 strikeouts in 75 innings. He also owns a 0.893 WHIP, having allowed just 54 hits and 13 walks.
In four starts since returning from an oblique strain that sidelined him for nearly seven weeks, Scherzer has been even better, pitching to a 1.78 ERA with 39 strikeouts and two walks in 25 ¹/₃ innings.
Get all the latest live and local coverage from the New York Post as the Yankees and Mets face off for Game 1 of the 2022 Subway Series.
“He’s been a lot of the same guy I remember facing,” Brandon Nimmo said. “He attacks hitters and has great preparation leading into his starts and knows exactly the plan that he has and what he wants to execute when he goes out there, so that is one of the differences: he goes out and executes it and hits his spots and doesn’t make many mistakes. When you have good stuff and execute your pitches, it makes it really hard to hit him.”
The Mets ideally would have had deGrom and Scherzer for the Subway Series. But deGrom, who is rehabbing from a stress reaction on his right scapula, had a simulated game pushed back two days last week because of muscle soreness in his shoulder. After deGrom threw his simulated game, a decision was reached to give him an additional rehab start.
But the Mets got the next-best thing with Taijuan Walker and Scherzer aligned for the Yankees. Walker took the ball for Tuesday’s series opener.
“We know they are a real good team and we want to have good guns firing for it,” Nimmo said. “But with Jake coming back now, we are going to have a pretty dang good starting staff. We are confident with whoever goes out there, but it’s great to have Taijuan and Scherzer going out there against them.”
Nimmo recalled the euphoria of thinking deGrom and Scherzer might pitch together all season in the rotation. That plan was amended after just two appearances by deGrom in spring training, after which he was diagnosed with the stress reaction. The Mets later lost deGrom’s replacement, Tylor Megill, to two IL stints. Megill remains sidelined.
“We were planning on pretty much having two aces and then Megill was doing his thing and it was great,” Nimmo said. “But when [Megill and Scherzer] went down it left a little bit of a gap, and I felt like our pitchers — especially like Carlos [Carrasco] and Taijuan — they had great starts and filled that gap well. But when Max comes back, it kind of gives you that solid ace feel of, ‘He’s going out on the mound, we’re definitely going to have a chance tonight. He is going to give us a chance for seven innings.’ ”
Scherzer is 4-4 with a 3.93 ERA lifetime in nine starts against the Yankees. Most of those starts came when Scherzer was still pitching in the AL with the Tigers.
“The situations he’s been through, he will not be fazed by [the Subway Series], and he could be telling the next batter to, ‘Get in the effing box’ or something like that,” Davis said. “We are going to get the tenacity of Scherzer, so I don’t think he’s going to be fazed by it at all.”
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