An all around bad time

You can file virtually every part of this game under “that is not what you want”.

Max Scherzer, who has been trying to get his 200th career win with the same success rate as the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, took the mound against his former franchise in the Washington Nationals and looked like his typical Max Scherzer-ian self, save for surrendering a solo home run in the first inning to Luis García. He did, however, see his night end early due to “feeling fatigued on his left side” according to the SNY broadcast, which is extremely not what you would like to see, considering he missed two months with an oblique injury on that same side.

Offensively, the Mets were nothing short of dreadful. They amassed just four hits and one run against the ghost of Patrick Corbin — who, in fairness to the lefty, looked like his old self tonight. The one run came off the bat of Eduardo Escobar, who hit yet another home run, this time in the third inning, as the switch hitter is starting to heat up a bit as we march towards the end of the season.

The Nationals broke the 1-1 tie in the eighth inning, when Lane Thomas took a very, very poorly located Adam Ottavino slider over the left field fence. Ottavino kept the damage to just that, but looked human for the first time in a long time.

The Mets had a chance to pick Ottavino up in the eighth, facing Carl Edwards Jr. Nimmo beat out a would-be double play and Marte hit a perfectly placed infield single to put two runners on with two outs, but Francisco Lindor popped up a 2-0 fastball to end the rally.

Buck Showalter inexplicably brought Adonis Medina in for the ninth, and promptly surrendered five runs (one due to a Jeff McNeil error) to put this game to bed. On a brighter note, Bryce Montes de Oca, who has battled some serious injuries in his career, made his major league debut in relief of Medina and stopped the bleeding.

Box scores

MLB
ESPN

SB Nation GameThreads

Amazin’ Avenue
Federal Baseball

Win Probability Added

fangraphs.com

Big Mets winner: Eduardo Escobar, +21.3% WPA
Big Mets loser: Adam Ottavino, -22.4% WPA
Mets pitchers: -8.0% WPA
Mets hitters: -42.0% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Eduardo Escobar’s third inning home run, +13.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Lane Thomas’s eighth inning home run, -29.2% WPA