HOUSTON — With the sort of well-rounded, beginning-to-end, pitching-and-hitting effort that they expected to be so much more common this season, the Mets achieved their rarest of feats Monday: a low-stress win.
They beat the Astros, 11-1, in the opener of a three-game series between a pair of teams that have struggled to live up to expectations.
Max Scherzer cruised through eight innings (one run), his first time pitching that deep since September 2021, when he was with the Dodgers. Francisco Lindor totaled five RBIs via a three-run homer in the third and a two-run double in the ninth. Every Mets starter except Brandon Nimmo had at least one hit and reached base twice.
Altogether, it made for the Mets’ first win against the Astros since 2014 and their first win in Houston since 2011.
More significantly for these Mets, it was their first win of more than five runs since May 25, when they blew out the Cubs.
The Mets, toiling under .500 at 34-38, have won three of their past five games. The Astros, the defending World Series champions who have sunk to third place in the AL West, are losers of 10 of their past 13 games and are 39-34 overall.
Scherzer, who scattered four hits and a walk and struck out eight, was effective and efficient from the start.
He didn’t allow a baserunner until the third, when Jeremy Pena singled on a ground ball through the right side of the infield. He didn’t allow a second baserunner until the sixth, when Martin Maldonado and Alex Bregman singled to put two on with two outs. Scherzer escaped by getting Kyle Tucker to whiff on a slider down and in for strike three.
Scherzer’s slider, the lack of control of which he blamed for his stinker against the Yankees last week, proved sharp. He threw that pitch 31 times, inducing seven swing-and-misses (including five in the first two innings). Against the Yankees, he threw it 17 times and got one whiff.
Yainer Diaz accounted for the Astros’ only run with a homer in the seventh.
The Mets took control with a quick-strike five-run rally in the third inning against righthander Hunter Brown (5 2/3 innings, six runs).
Daniel Vogelbach led off with a home run, his second in four games (after totaling two this season to date before that). Brett Baty, Francisco Alvarez and Starling Marte singled to produce another run. Then Lindor came through with a three-run homer.
Tommy Pham (leadoff double) and Jeff McNeil (RBI single) combined to tack on a run in the sixth inning.
For Brown, who has a 3.78 ERA in what has been a solid rookie season, the six runs allowed were a career-high.
The Mets put another five-spot on the scoreboard in the ninth inning against Shawn Dubin. With two outs, six consecutive batters reached base.
The closest thing the Mets had to a scare came in the eighth inning, when catcher Francisco Alvarez took a Maldonado foul ball off of his right (throwing) hand. Manager Buck Showalter and an athletic trainer checked on him, and he stayed in the game.
For the Mets, the real challenge comes next: Do it again. But it might get harder the next two days, with the Astros set to throw their top two starters: Framber Valdez (2.27 ERA) and Cristian Javier (2.90).
