HOUSTON — A series that looked like a clash of the titans before the season started looked more like a race to the bottom by the time it began. The Mets came into Houston to face the defending World Series champion Astros this week having lost 11 of their last 14 games, but the Astros came in riding a similar streak, losing nine of their last 12.
How the mighty have fallen.
Still, the Astros can’t be discounted. So if this series is a litmus test of sorts, then the Mets have passed the first part. Behind a dominant performance by Max Scherzer, the Mets defeated the Astros, 11-1, on Monday at Minute Maid Park.
Scherzer (6-2) held the Astros to only a single run — a solo shot by Yainer Diaz in the seventh inning — on four hits over eight innings. Before Diaz’s home run, Scherzer hadn’t allowed a runner past second base. He walked only one and struck out eight, lowering his ERA by 41 points to 4.04. It was his most efficient start of the year and the first time he’s gone past seven innings since signing with the Mets. The last time he got through eight, he was still a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers (September 12, 2021).
Scherzer’s slider failed him against the Yankees last week, but it was back in a big way against the Astros (39-34). He threw it 31 times and the Astros put 18 swings on it. They whiffed on seven of them.
The Mets (34-38) spotted him five runs when Hunter Brown (6-4) imploded in the third. Daniel Vogelbach and Francisco Lindor both homered in the inning, with Lindor’s going for three runs. It was the second home run in the last four days for Vogelbach, but just his fourth of the season.
For Lindor, it was his 14th. The Mets were already up 2-0 when Lindor, who was batting from the left side, took a fastball inside and lifted it into the right field seats.
Lindor later hit a two-run double off Shawn Dubin, a right-hander from Allegany, New York, who made his major league debut. It came in the top of the ninth to push the game out of reach for the Astros and allowed a beleaguered Mets bullpen to save its crucial late-game arms. The Mets eventually ended up scoring five off Dubin in the ninth.
Grant Hartwig made his big league debut in the bottom of the ninth and it went much better than Dubin’s. The right-hander threw a scoreless ninth with the help of a 6-3 double play.
Lindor went 2-for-5 with five RBI. Starling Marte went 2-for-5 with one RBI and two runs scored and Tommy Pham continued his hot streak going 2-for-4 with a leadoff double in the sixth. Jeff McNeil drove him in with an RBI single. His single in the eighth scored Lindor. Pham has now hit safely in 10 of his last 11 games.
Brown was charged with a season-high six earned runs on seven hits over 5 2/3 innings.
After weeks of back-and-forth battles, extra-inning losses, sloppy errors and comebacks that fell short, the Mets finally played the way they envisioned: A dominant pitching performance from one of the game’s best and a lineup that forced a winning pitcher to exit the game early.
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