Max Scherzer appears likely to avoid the injured list, in part because the Mets ace does not consider himself injured.
After leaving Saturday’s start early with left side fatigue, Scherzer woke up on Sunday feeling “OK, kind of as expected,” he said, and was not scheduled to undergo any imaging.
“There’s nothing that’s sharp, that’s grabby,” Scherzer said Sunday morning before the Mets fell to the Nationals 7-1. “It’s kind of just dull everywhere — it’s kind of everywhere except the oblique.
“There’s no injury,” he later added. “I’m hurt, not injured.”
Scherzer was pitching on an extra day of rest on Saturday, and will be doing so again in his next start — which is tentatively lined up for Friday in Miami — because the Mets have an off day on Thursday.
Mets pitcher Max Scherzer watches a double play to end the third inning during a game against the Nationals. Michelle Farsi/New York Post“Basically, he’s going to start with an extra day or you push it back,” manager Buck Showalter said. “But I don’t foresee this in any type of [IL]-able injury. I think he’s going to pitch soon after the off day.”
Scherzer missed seven weeks with a strained left oblique earlier this season, but he said Saturday night that this issue was different. He began experiencing the fatigue in the fourth inning of Saturday’s start against the Nationals and when it didn’t go away by the fifth inning, the Mets decided to play it safe and take him out of the game after 67 pitches.
The Mets have David Peterson stretched out as a starter if they needed one to fill in for Scherzer at least temporarily, but they hope that won’t be necessary.
“We’ll see,” Showalter said. “I think the big thing is going to be when he takes his work day. Where’s the bite, if any?”
Sunday marked the 29th anniversary of Jim Abbott’s no-hitter for the Yankees with Showalter as his manager.
“You know what I think about?” Showalter said. “Some days, the baseball gods, you go, ‘No way.’ … Something that shouldn’t happen on paper — that’s why, there’s talk about all the great analytical stuff we have, but every once in a while, you go, ‘That shouldn’t have happened.’ But it’s also why we watch the game. God, if it was that predictable, it’d be boring as hell.”
Reliever Adonis Medina was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse to make room for Carlos Carrasco being activated off the IL to start Sunday’s game.
Jim Reeves, a longtime Mets area scout who is retiring, threw out the first pitch. He is responsible for signing Brandon Nimmo and Peterson, among others.
On July 26, before a Subway Series game at Citi Field, Eduardo Escobar promised a young fan he would give him his bat if he hit a home run during the game. Sure enough, Escobar homered in a 6-3 win over the Yankees.
On Sunday morning, that fan returned to Citi Field, where Escobar hosted him in the Mets dugout and gave him a signed bat and a personalized jersey.
