Given their résumés, the Mets should be strutting into Citi Field this Subway Series, with Max Scherzer starting Tuesday’s opener and Justin Verlander going Wednesday.
But just like the rest of this Mets’ season, with the team sitting significantly closer to last place than to first, the tandem of veteran Cy Young right-handers has not lived up to expectations.
With the Mets having dropped eight of their last nine, they’ll turn to Scherzer for the opener against the Yankees on Tuesday.
Scherzer has a 3.71 ERA, but was roughed up for five runs on 11 hits in 5 ²/₃ innings in a loss in Atlanta in his previous start.
At least Scherzer’s latest pitfall came after a promising four-start stretch in which he gave up just four runs — three earned — over 25 innings.
The Mets won all four of those games before dropping Scherzer’s clunker against the Braves, which was part of a disturbing recent stretch in which they fell to 9 ½ games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East.
As recently as June 2, the Mets were just 3 ½ games back of Atlanta, but that was before the Braves swept them at Truist Park and the Pirates took two of three from the Mets in Pittsburgh.
Perhaps coming back to Queens will straighten out Buck Showalter’s team, although being without Pete Alonso for at least the next several weeks after the first baseman suffered a bone bruise and sprain to his left wrist won’t help.
That’s where Scherzer and Verlander should be able to step in and provide some assistance.
Verlander, though, has not put consecutive solid starts together since his first two outings of the year after he missed the first month of the regular season with a teres major strain.
After allowing three runs over his first two starts in April, Verlander has given up 19 runs — 18 earned — in 27 innings over his last five outings for an ERA of 6.00 in that stretch.
His strikeout rate, which dipped last year to 27.8 percent from 33.3 percent in 2021, has plummeted to 19.9 percent this season.
Verlander’s four-seam fastball and curveball are both getting clobbered, and after defying the odds by coming back from Tommy John surgery to win the American League Cy Young Award at the age of 39 with a 1.75 ERA, he’s looked like a 40-year-old so far this year.
Still, there are several reasons Steve Cohen invested a combined $86 million this season in Scherzer and Verlander.
Among those reasons is to pitch in series like this one and to turn around seasons when the team is in the dumps.
The Mets are already looking at a deep hole to pick themselves out of and have pointed to last year’s Phillies, as well as the 2019 Nationals, as examples of why it’s possible to overcome bad starts to make a run at the World Series.
At this point, though, there’s no sign that a turnaround is imminent largely because the starting pitching hasn’t lived up to its potential.
Kodai Senga has been solid, but Carlos Carrasco has been roughed up for a 5.71 ERA and Tylor Megill has disappointed in a fill-in role that will likely last at least until Jose Quintana’s expected return next month from a rib injury that has sidelined him all year.
None of those starters, though, compare to the importance of Scherzer and Verlander, a pair of Hall of Fame-bound pitchers who have previously defied their ages .
Scherzer was excellent in 2021 with Washington and down the stretch as a Dodger and pitched to a 2.29 ERA in 23 starts with the Mets a year ago before bombing against the Padres in the wild-card round.
At this point, the Mets are sitting outside of even the NL wild card, three games behind Milwaukee.
Perhaps their 1-2 punch can spark something against the Yankees.