Justin Verlander’s ‘diva’ attitude didn’t sit well with Max Scherzer and some Mets
The Mets season that’s devolved into a disaster has plenty of blame to go around.
But the $364 million roster had plenty of problems in the much-ballyhooed pitching rotation.
And the faces of the Mets’ rotation were the team’s ostensible co-aces, 40-year-old Justin Verlander (shipped off to the Astros) and the 39-year-old Max Scherzer (traded to the Rangers) struggled at times on and off the field
The two likely future Hall of Famers — who looked to work toward “harmony,” a source told The Post’s Mike Puma, after they didn’t have the best relationship when they pitched for the Tigers from 2010-14 — still had some bumps in their relationship this season.
A Met told Puma that Verlander was a “diva” who was detached from his Mets teammates and complained about how the team’s analytics department was not at the level as the one he worked with during his first stint with the Astros.
And it was that “diva” attitude caused Scherzer to grumble some about Verlander.
It was a different vibe than last year’s rotation had, The Post’s Mike Puma reported, as Scherzer and Chris Bassitt were free in offering information to the team’s other, younger pitchers.
Nevertheless, the Mets let Bassitt walk in the offseason to the Blue Jays as the club brought in Verlander, Jose Quintana and Kodai Senga.
Personal drama aside, Verlander and Scherzer largely didn’t live up to expectations this year as they each had ups and downs before the Mets shifted to sell-off mode.
The Mets, who were seventh in all of baseball with a 3.57 team ERA last season, haven’t seen the same success this year as they entered Saturday with a 4.38 ERA, closer to the bottom than the top.
Verlander, the 2022 American League Cy Young award winner did not throw a pitch for the Mets until May 4 as he suffered a teres major strain shortly before Opening Day.
And when he did get back on the mound, he didn’t get off to a hot start for the Mets, going 2-2 in May with a 4.80 ERA over five starts.
“We kind of got off on the wrong foot. Everything that could go wrong did early,” Verlander, as a member of the Astros, told reporters at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 3. “Even though we started playing some good baseball at times, we never really hit our stride where we were kind of banging on all cylinders. I can’t answer exactly why that is.”
Over his first 30 innings, the right-hander only whiffed 22 batters, which was in stark contrast to the 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings he recorded during his impressive 2022 campaign.
By July, he looked more like his old self with a 1.69 ERA and 1.02 WHIP over the month, but by that time, the Mets had scuffled with a 7-19 June and didn’t play well enough to recover in July.
Scherzer, who had a 2.88 ERA in 2022, didn’t have the same dominance in 2023 and had a 4.01 ERA before he was eventually shipped to Texas in the deal that landed the Mets Luisangel Acuna.
Earlier this week, Scherzer told “Foul Territory” that he did not expect to be dealt, but eventually realized the team was heading in a different direction as the winning never came consistently.
“It became obvious which way the team was gonna go and the best decisions for everyone involved. … You signed up there to win and you really thought we’d have a chance to win there,” Scherzer told the show. Obviously, we didn’t and that’s what stinks.”
And at the Aug. 1 trade deadline, Verlander was gone too in a trade to go back to his old team.
“It was just an unfortunate season where things didn’t go according to plan,” Verlander said after the trade. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for their organization and how they treat players.”
After an abysmal 21-3 loss in the opening game of Saturday’s doubleheader, the Mets are now 52-64 as they sink closer to the bottom of the National League East.
