Mets put their money on Max Scherzer for games like these

ATLANTA — There are a number of reasons why the Mets made Max Scherzer the highest-salaried player in the majors this year at $43.3 million.

Put Saturday night’s start against the defending world champs near the top of that list, if not No. 1. And the stakes, already huge coming into this series at Truist Park, got significantly more so after what happened during Friday’s 5-2 loss to Atlanta, when Jacob deGrom — the Mets’ erstwhile ace — bowed out earlier than anticipated due to a popped blister on his middle finger.

That opening loss flipped the script on the weekend, at least momentarily, as Atlanta moved back into a share of first place and put the division tiebreaker back on the table with the baseball in Scherzer’s right hand for the middle game. Considering deGrom’s blister situation, and his worrisome performance (6.00 ERA) over his past four starts, the focus returns to Scherzer, just as it did coming out spring training when deGrom wound up on the shelf for 4 1/2 months because of the stress reaction in his right shoulder blade.

But Scherzer, at the age of 39, comes with his own concerns — all of them physical in nature. As long as he’s intact, Scherzer continues to be one of the surest bets in the sport, as his 2.13 ERA in 22 starts this season will attest. He also was 3-0 against Atlanta this season, with three walks and 28 strikeouts over those 20 innings. The defending world champs batted .145 with one homer and a .232 slugging against him during that stretch.

Scherzer proclaims to be at his best when facing the best, and few around the league would be as was well-suited for Saturday’s assignment. It’s now just a matter of how well Scherzer holds up down the stretch and into October. After recovering from a left oblique strain that cost him roughly seven weeks — the minimum required for that particular rehab — Scherzer appeared to suffer from some residual discomfort when he landed back on the IL early last month with what was described by the team as left side irritation.

While that sounds suspiciously like a re-aggravation of his previous oblique condition, Scherzer bounced back in prompt fashion, and didn’t look any worse for wear. He threw six perfect innings (9 Ks, 0 BB) against the Brewers in his return on Sept. 19 and then voluntarily complied with the rehab specialists in coming out after only 68 pitches. The next time out, Scherzer won again, allowing one run and four hits (7 Ks) over six innings in a 13-4 rout of the A’s.

Those dozen innings should have been enough for the Mets to have the utmost confidence in Scherzer for Saturday’s showdown. They’re 14-8 in his starts, and can’t help but carry some extra swagger when he’s pitching. That stems from Scherzer’s Hall of Fame presence, which flows from the clubhouse to the field in each of his starts.

“Max is a stay-in-the-moment guy,” manager Buck Showalter said before Saturday night’s game. “They never take any hitter or any spot for granted. Max is a proactive pitcher. He’s not going to do something that he could have avoided if he’d been more on point or more on his game. He’s a guy you don’t want to disappoint. He makes his teammates better.”

The Mets needed that Saturday after seeing deGrom give way to Tylor Megill the previous night, a move that blew up in Showalter’s face when the Megill relief experiment immediately yielded three hits and a pair of runs that seemingly put the game out of reach. They also were flat offensively, scoring on Tomas Nido’s late solo homer and Luis Guillorme’s sinking liner RBI-single that clanged off the glove of sliding leftfielder Eddie Rosario.

Scherzer’s first-year dominance for the Mets has spurred a debate over who is the team’s true ace, but that conversation has quieted some in recent weeks. Choosing between him and deGrom for Game 1 duty also is secondary for now, as that will be determined by how the Mets finish over these next five days.

If the division still is up for grabs Wednesday, deGrom says he should be able to make that start against the Nationals at Citi Field, but his effectiveness could be impacted by the blister. And if the Mets then fall into the wild-card round, that would set up Scherzer for the Oct. 7 opener, just based on more normal rest.

But the Mets aren’t there yet. As of Saturday, Scherzer’s mission was to keep them in the NL East hunt, creating a playoff-type atmosphere at Truist Park that he’s experienced plenty of times before with 21 postseason starts and five relief appearances on his resume (3.22 ERA, 11.2 K/9).

On the Mets, Scherzer is a money pitcher, in every sense of the word. Saturday was time for the payoff.