The plan was always a simple one: The Mets were going to go all-in with their pocket aces. That’s the smart solution in Texas hold-’em, and it’s the proper plan in October hold-on. Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom are on your side. No need to overthink. Throw them at whoever you play and expect the best.
There was, of course, always a caveat to all of this, even before Buck Showalter started playing six-dimensional chess instead of table-stakes poker, even before he began to ponder the possibility of waiting on Jacob deGrom until Game 1 of the NLDS, assuming all goes perfectly for the Mets in the wild-card series against the Padres.
We saw that downside last week, and it was stark.
Sometimes, aces get hit. And sometimes, you don’t have enough stick to help them out. That’s an annoyance during the regular season. In October, it’s something else.
“You make mistakes,” Scherzer said, “and you lose.”
Both things were true in Atlanta last weekend, the three-game incubus against the Braves in which all of the good things the Mets had accomplished across 156 games were reduced to powder. DeGrom and Scherzer were vulnerable, and the Braves’ hitters pounced on that fact. But the Mets’ hitters were also enfeebled, and Atlanta’s hurlers kept them quiet.
All of those things are still in play for the first-ever best-of-three series in Mets history, all of the games taking place at Citi Field, and all of them hinging on one simple question:
Can the Mets’ offense replicate what it did in its three-game, two-day joyride against the cashed-out Nationals this week, or will it retreat to what happened in the three games preceding, when every one-run lead felt uber-tenuous (and they did blow four separate one-run leads in the three games), when every one-run deficit felt like 10 (and that’s being generous).
This is a lesson hard-learned by Mets fans, who have seen the best years of deGrom’s career fly by and have seen so many of those brilliant efforts result in losses — either because they couldn’t score runs for him, or because a leaky bullpen sabotaged him. The Mets were 6-5 in his starts this year; since 2016, they are 73-70 when he takes the mound.
And Scherzer got a taste of that this year, too. Since Aug. 12, the Mets have gone 8-9 in deGrom’s and Scherzer’s starts.
Now, both have had splendid playoff moments, too. But this is also the nature of the postseason: The other guys have a couple of good pitchers, too. In this case the Padres will throw out Yu Darvish (5-0 lifetime in eight starts against the Mets, 2.56 ERA), Blake Snell (2.83 ERA in six postseason starts) and Joe Musgrove (whom the Mets have mostly pounded in six career starts, but who had a fine 2.93 ERA this year).
“In postseason you get the best of the best, you get everyone’s best punch,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “We’re going to get theirs. And they’ll get ours.”
Maybe you would still take the deGrom/Scherzer/Chris Bassit parlay over Darvish/Snell/Musgrove. But with a suddenly resurgent Josh Hader waiting in the bullpen and lately looking just as ominous as Edwin Diaz appears in the Mets’ pen (Hader allowed one run and pitched to a 0.87 ERA in September), it sure would behoove the Mets to not let their pocket aces go to the showers, even if they pitch at maximum effectiveness, up 1-0. Or down 1-0.
“There’s no such thing as a cakewalk in the postseason,” Scherzer said.
Scherzer knows that as well as anyone. He’s had October gems. He’s had October struggles. Nothing comes easy in the playoffs but, then, it’s not supposed to.
“The job description,” Lindor said, “is to be the last man standing.”
And for that to happen a lot of good things have to happen.
“The margin for error is very small,” Showalter said. “Runs will be at a premium. If you get a chance to catch something you’ve got to push it across. What’s supposed to happen doesn’t always happen. We’ve seen that with our guys.”
Yes. He has. The Mets will earn the checkmark under “starting pitching” in most matchups, but that won’t mean a thing unless Lindor, Pete Alonso and their friends can take the bats out of hibernation. No Nats ham-and-eggers on the schedule this weekend, alas. The Mets will earn that trip to LA that they so covet. Or spend 4 ½ long months pondering how it all went so desperately wrong.
