David Lennon: Mets starter Christian Scott impressive despite being outdueled in Subway Series finale
Mets pitcher Christian Scott pitches against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
The Mets knew their margin for error would be close to zero Sunday against American League Cy Young Award favorite Cam Schlittler. And that didn’t leave much wiggle room for Christian Scott, who took the mound for the Subway Series finale with a chance at finishing off an upset weekend in the Bronx.
It didn’t take very long, however, for Scott to realize just how quickly the walls close in at Yankee Stadium. Five pitches, to be exact.
Ahead of leadoff hitter Ben Rice 1-and-2, Scott followed a 98-mph fastball with an 85-mph spit-changeup that got pulled sky-high toward the short porch in rightfield.
The math wasn’t in Scott’s favor. Rice entered Sunday with 37 homers, tied for fifth-most in the majors, and this particular ballpark’s dimensions, at 314 feet down the line, don’t allow for many do-overs.
“I was kind of sucking it in,” Scott said, smiling. “Hopefully it was going to come up short. But when you backspin a ball to the pull side, it gets out of here most times.”
Count Sunday as one of those times. Rice’s 333-foot fly ball — far enough to be a home run in only six of MLB’s 30 ballparks — landed a few rows deep and just inside the foul pole.
With Schlittler firing zeros all afternoon, Rice’s balloon turned out to be sufficient. Scott’s only other blemish was the solo shot into the second deck in rightfield that he teed up to Austin Wells in the Mets’ 2-0 loss to the Yankees.
“It’s unfortunate, but part of the game,” said Scott, who went six innings (three hits, two walks, seven strikeouts) for only the third time in 22 starts this season. “It’s the stadium that we’re playing at. But he made a good swing on it and I hung it a little bit more than I wanted to.”
There’s no shame in going head-to-head with Schlittler for six innings and losing by what amounted to a total of two swings. Scott’s four-seam fastball was in prime form, averaging 96.6 mph — a few ticks above his 95.5 for the season — and producing seven of his 13 swings-and-misses.
The one Scott got beat on was 95.5 mph at the top of the zone to Wells, who hammered that first-pitch heater for a 392-foot blast that went well past the landing spot of Rice’s rainbow. What probably stung a little was the fact that Wells was hitless (0-for-20) in his previous eight games, along with being the easiest out in the otherwise dangerous Yankees lineup.
“Outside of that, he was absolutely dominant,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “He matched Schlittler pitch-for-pitch at that point in time, but they did the damage on the home runs.”
Considering the Mets have been in evaluation mode for months now, these performances tend to get graded on a curve. But Green was right to use the word dominant, as the Yankees never had anyone else get as far as second base. Scott gave up a pair of walks after Wells’ third-inning homer — Jose Caballero was thrown out trying to steal — and Spencer Jones added a one-out single in the fourth.
Not bad against a team that could’ve clinched a playoff berth Sunday if they had gotten some help from the Blue Jays and Guardians (both teams won to delay the inevitable).
“With Scott and Cam going at it, you knew it was going to be two guys with really good fastballs,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “But I thought Scott was really good with his secondary [pitches] against some of our good fastball hitters.”
One matchup of note: Scott struck out Aaron Judge three times. In the first inning, he rifled a 98-mph fastball past a swinging Judge. He got lucky in the third, confusing him with an 83-mph split-change that hung up near the top of the zone, freezing him. In the sixth, Scott whiffed Judge with a 90-mph cutter.
The Mets have been protective of Scott as he winds down his first season back from Tommy John surgery, so they had to be thrilled by Sunday’s efficiency, as he needed only 82 pitches for six innings. Staring down a team like the Yankees in front of a mostly hostile crowd (45,508) was another milestone in a year that typically is hard to forecast for pitchers coming back from the extended rehab from a UCL repair.
“When you give up a solo homer and [Schlittler] goes no runs through six, it’s tough to beat him,” said Scott, who is 4-5 with a 3.76 ERA. “But I feel like at the end of the day, I can go out and compete against anybody and put my stuff against anybody else’s.”
Ironically, the Mets’ worst performance of the Subway Series belonged to once-and-future ace Nolan McLean, who got smacked around for 10 hits and five runs (two homers) in Friday night’s 6-4 loss. But rookie lefthander Zac Thornton responded with a seven-inning gem (five hits, two runs) in Saturday’s 12-2 rout and Scott wound up the hard-luck loser in Sunday’s finale.
Something to build on? Maybe. The Mets’ rotation is going to require more upgrading this offseason. But as far as Thornton and Scott are concerned, there were encouraging signs for the future.
“It’s good to see them do it here,” Green said. “But this park was not going to rattle either one of those guys. I don’t see playoff atmospheres rattling those guys. Those guys are wired to handle that stuff.”
Still, the Mets could use the validation at this time of year. And they got some during the Subway Series despite heading back to Flushing with only one win.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
