You could say Mets starting pitcher Max Scherzer was feeling it on Wednesday night during his latest tuneup for 2023.
New York faced Team Nicaragua as they continued to prepare for the World Baseball Classic. The right-hander tossed three innings against the squad and recorded nine (!) strikeouts. Check them out below.
This is the result of Scherzer’s first inning:
Max Scherzer strikes out the side in his first inning of work vs. Nicaragua pic.twitter.com/rQ4U5U2sv5
— SNY (@SNYtv) March 8, 2023
Here’s the second inning:
Max Scherzer strikes out 3 more vs. Nicaragua in the 2nd inning.
Scherzer surrendered a home run to Cheslor Cuthbert and faced traffic on the basepaths with 2 Mets errors in the inning from Mark Vientos and Luis Guillorme. pic.twitter.com/cbLGbG9lyR
— SNY (@SNYtv) March 8, 2023
And finally, here’s the third inning:
3 more strikeouts for Max Scherzer!
All 9 of his outs in his 3 innings of work have come via the strikeout. pic.twitter.com/Y5NAZcDcy5
— SNY (@SNYtv) March 8, 2023
The fielders were probably getting bored. But then again, it’s not like they took advantage of the few opportunities they had.
Nicaragua put just three balls in play while Scherzer was on the mound. One was a Cheslor Cuthbert homer, and the other two were booted — one by Mark Vientos and another by Luis Guillorme (yes, that does happen occasionally).
Max Scherzer came out to start the fourth inning, but he exited after walking Cuthbert. He eventually came around to score on a sac fly, which added another earned run to the righty’s tally for the evening.
Talk about a unique way to go about a spring training outing, right?
Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
