MILWAUKEE — Six years later, the Mets are going back to the playoffs.
Max Scherzer tossed six perfect innings and picked up his 200th win as the Mets beat the Brewers, 7-2, on Monday to clinch a spot in the postseason for the first time since 2016.
Their primary regular-season objective — winning the NL East — remains a work in progress. Atlanta also won, so the Mets’ division lead stayed at one game.
But for at least a night, they could relish accomplishing what their immediate predecessors had not, qualifying as one of the best teams in the majors — and doing so with more than two weeks to go.
Steve Cohen, in his second season as the team’s owner, was in attendance to watch the Mets play their prototypical 2022 game: excellent starting pitching, a well-rounded offensive effort and effective enough bullpen work.
Only three players remain from the Mets’ most recent playoff team: Jacob deGrom, Brandon Nimmo and Seth Lugo. As they can attest, a lot of life has been lived since then — including for the franchise itself, which has changed managers four times and changed GMs five times in addition to getting sold to Cohen.
Back in 2016, DeGrom hadn’t won any Cy Young Awards (or developed an injury-prone reputation). Nimmo was a rookie, experiencing “the shock and awe of the big leagues,” as he put it, and now he is weeks away from being the second best outfielder on the free-agent market. Lugo has gone from first-year starter to high-end late-inning reliever.
“I got spoiled, especially watching it in ’15 and getting to be a part of the run in ’16,” Nimmo recalled Monday afternoon. “I just thought, ‘OK, great, this is the start of a new generation of the Mets. We have good players up and coming and we’re going to be in the playoff race every single year and I’m going to get a lot of experience with this and we’ll eventually get the World Series.’ And that isn’t how it’s turned out.
“So it makes this even more special, because of the waiting . . . Now we’re starting to get to the fruits of our hard work. It gives me some perspective heading into it of just how awesome this is and how fortunate and how much hard work had to go into it. It’s not to be taken lightly, is the perspective I have now.”
In his first start back from the injured list (left side irritation), Scherzer retired all 18 batters he faced. He was efficient, too, needing only 68 pitches to get through six innings. But because of his recent minimal workload — and the Mets’ desire to keep him as healthy as possible for a season they hope lasts into November — manager Buck Showalter pulled him.
Scherzer became just the third active pitcher, behind Justin Verlander (243) and Zack Greinke (233), to reach the 200-win mark.
The first Brewers batter to face anybody other than Scherzer, Christian Yelich, led off the seventh with a clean double. The combined bid at a perfect game was over. That came against Tylor Megill, who also allowed a two-run homer to Rowdy Tellez in his first appearance since June (strained right shoulder) and first major-league appearance out of the bullpen.
The Mets reached Milwaukee righthander Corbin Burnes, the defending NL Cy Young Award winner, for five runs in 5 2/3 innings.
That run total was more than they had in Burnes’ four previous starts against the Mets combined.
After a quick and easy first three innings for Burnes, Pete Alonso broke through with a three-run homer in the fourth. His no-doubter flew an estimated 437 feet, far enough that the leftfielder, Yelich barely moved as he watched it go.
Alonso’s season totals: 36 homers, 118 RBIs.
The Mets added tworuns in the sixth. Nimmo and Francisco Lindor had back-to-back triples, and Daniel Vogelbach added a two-out, RBI double.
