The 89-win Padres flew across the country Wednesday night for a wild-card series in which they were certified underdogs.
But they walked into Citi Field on Friday night and crashed the party, putting them one win away from returning to Southern California for an NL West battle in the NLDS.
The Padres crushed four home runs off Max Scherzer while their own ace, Yu Darvish, stifled the Mets on the way to a 7-1 win in Game 1.
“I don’t think anybody goes out there and expects everybody to hit four homers tonight,” said Trent Grisham, who hit a solo shot in the second inning. “But we have a lot of confidence in the guys in this locker room. We were not surprised that we went out there and handled business tonight.”
Darvish continued his mastery of the Mets, giving them a chance early and then slamming the door in their face. After limiting them to one run and six hits across 14 innings in this regular season, the veteran right-hander held the Mets to one run across seven strong innings Friday night.
The Mets put a runner on third in each of the first two innings, but Darvish stranded them there and then went into cruise control before giving up a solo home run to Eduardo Escobar in the fifth inning. It was the only time the Mets touched Darvish all night.
“Once I was in trouble in [the first] inning, the stadium was so loud that it felt like basically someone was screaming into my ears,” Darvish said through an interpreter. “I just kind of reminded myself that it’s just noise and just go out there and do your thing.”
Meanwhile, the Padres had their way with Scherzer. They hit the majors’ 10th-fewest home runs during the regular season, but came out aggressively and brought plenty of slugging on Friday night.
Josh Bell, the secondary piece from the Nationals in the Juan Soto blockbuster trade, had hit just three home runs in 53 games as a Padre — and none since Sept. 6. But he came up in the first inning and clobbered a 95 mph fastball from Scherzer the other way for a two-run home run, bat flip included.
In the second inning, it was Grisham. The center fielder hit just .110 with two home runs and a .195 slugging percentage over his final 37 games of the regular season, but smacked a high fastball from Scherzer out of the park for a 3-0 lead.
Leadoff man Jurickson Profar then broke the game open in the fifth with a three-run shot that just got out down the right-field line. The ball had an expected batting average of .180, per Statcast, but the damage counted just the same.
Manny Machado finished off the beatdown two batters later, when he drilled a line-drive home run to left to make it 7-0.
“It obviously gives you a little bit of breathing room,” Darvish said of the run support, “but I think I was more shocked [at] Scherzer giving up that much runs because you don’t see that very often.”