Lucchesi, Scherzer Continue Rotation Struggles

The Mets came into 2023 expected to have one of the top starting rotations in all of baseball with the additions of Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga and José Quintana. For a number of reasons, the Mets’ rotation has not been able to live up to the hype through the season’s first month. Verlander and Quintana have not pitched yet due to injuries. Max Scherzer and Carlos Carrasco have both missed time due to injuries. David Peterson was optioned to Triple-A after pitching to a 7.34 ERA in six starts. The result has been starts from unlikely sources such as José Butto, Denyi Reyes and Joey Lucchesi. Despite getting one of their top arms back in Scherzer on Wednesday, the struggles from the starting pitching continued as the Mets were swept in a doubleheader by the Detroit Tigers.

Lucchesi started the first game of the doubleheader for the Mets, and despite the Tigers being near the bottom of the league in every offensive category, they ambushed the left-hander in the first inning. He allowed four hits in the inning, including a three-run home run to Eric Haase who had not homered yet in 2023. After a 1-2-3 second inning, Javier Báez hit his first home run of the season on a churve that missed over the plate.

Lucchesi would settle down after the Báez home run and retire the next six batters before he was removed from the game. Since the Mets will need a starting pitcher for their Sunday game against the Rockies, Lucchesi was pulled after just 46 pitches since he is a strong candidate to start that game.

The Mets would fight their way back and take the lead, but the Tigers managed to score two runs in the eighth inning for a 6-5 victory in the opener.

After dropping the first game, the Mets hoped Scherzer would get them back on track in his first game back from his 10-game suspension. From the first batter, it was clear that Scherzer did not have his command. The future Hall-of-Famer walked the first batter on five pitches. After an infield single, Scherzer got ahead of Báez 0-2 in the count. His 0-2 fastball was intended to be high above the strike zone to get the free-swinging Báez to chase, but he put the pitch at the top of the zone which allowed Báez to advance the lead runner on a fly out. That runner came in on a sacrifice fly, and the Tigers added a second run on a two-out RBI double from Spencer Torkelson.

In the second inning, Haase burned the Mets again when he hit his second home run of the day. Scherzer threw an 0-1 slider that made it to the outside corner of the plate, but the ball stayed belt high for the Tigers’ catcher.

Scherzer made it through a clean third inning with two strikeouts, but his command issues resurfaced in the fourth inning. Akil Baddoo led off the inning with a single, then Scherzer put a fastball down the middle for Matt Vierling who launched a two-run home run to give Detroit five runs against the three-time Cy Young Award winner. Scherzer allowed two more hits in the inning and was pulled after just 3 1/3 innings. The first of the two inherited runners scored to give Scherzer six earned runs on the night as the Mets fell 8-1.

“I didn’t do a good job of locating,” Scherzer said following the loss. “I didn’t pitch well out of the stretch. When you have a long layoff, that is kind of one of the first things that goes.”

Mets starting pitching has left much to be desired in 2023. They have averaged less than five innings per start, pitched to a 5.56 ERA, allowed 4.5 walks per nine innings and allowed the second most home runs in MLB with 33. It is not impossible for the rotation to get right, especially with Verlander making his Mets debut on Thursday, but if the Mets want to prevent this season from falling apart before it even gets going, the starting pitching will need to turn things around soon.

The post Lucchesi, Scherzer Continue Rotation Struggles first appeared on Metsmerized Online.