NEW YORK — The dreams of Mets fans were supposed to come true on Friday night. When Max Scherzer signed a three-year, $130 million contract with New York, the wild-card series opener was the type of game Mets fans imagined the future Hall of Famer would dominate, an important moment setting the tone for a team ahead of a playoff run.
Instead, those fantasies were shattered as Scherzer unraveled in his start against the San Diego Padres, allowing seven earned runs on seven hits — including giving up a career-high four home runs — while striking out just four batters in 4⅔ innings in a 7-1 loss by New York.
Hours after Scherzer left the Citi Field mound, the moments of struggle played on a loop in his head.
“This is going to be a late night for me,” Scherzer said.
The damage started in the first inning when Padres designated hitter Josh Bell slugged a 419-foot opposite-field home run that scored Jurickson Profar. Outfielder Trent Grisham added on in the second inning, hitting a home run to right field to extend the Padres’ lead to 3-0. But the final straw for Scherzer’s evening came in the fifth, when Profar hit a home run to right field, scoring Ha-Seong Kim and Austin Nola, followed by a Manny Machado solo blast to left-center field, sending the Mets starter off to a chorus of boos from the 41,621 fans at Citi Field.
The Mets — who won 101 games in the regular season, led the division for 174 days but ended up as a wild-card team — now face elimination on Saturday with the Padres sending former Cy Young award winner Blake Snell to the mound.
“We ended up with the same record as somebody else in our division, and we’re getting an opportunity now,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said. “We’ll get one tomorrow to right the ship.”
Scherzer uncharacteristically struggled with his command throughout Friday’s outing; the seven earned runs were the most allowed by Scherzer in a postseason outing, his previous high coming in a 2011 ALCS loss while a member of the Detroit Tigers.
After examining video from his start, Scherzer said his fastball did not have the same movement that it typically does, sinking instead of rising.
“I wasn’t able to command that fastball the way I usually can,” Scherzer said. “That’s my bread and butter to be able to set up everything else. When my fastball’s flat and then running, that’s usually when I get hit a lot. Obviously, tonight I got hit a lot.”
It was the second straight disappointing start from Scherzer; he previously allowed four runs on two home runs and nine hits in 5⅔ innings pitched against the Atlanta Braves in a crucial start that led to New York falling out of contention for the division title.
Scherzer previously made two stints on the injured list, once in May with an oblique strain and a second in September with left side fatigue. When asked if injury played a role in his recent struggles, Scherzer said they did not factor into his performance.
“I had a feel for what was going on in the Atlanta start,” Scherzer said. “I thought I made the adjustment to get me right. Tonight, I don’t know why the fastball ran. I don’t know why I didn’t have my good fastball, the way I can usually pitch and locate.”
The performance contrasted dramatically with the performance from Padres starter Yu Darvish, who dominated the Mets lineup throughout the game, allowing just one run on six hits in seven innings.
“Obviously Max, with the expectations that he has for himself and what he’s done for us and throughout baseball, but Darvish is on top of his game and we knew that was going to be a challenge,” Showalter said. “He’s just got so many things you have to defend.”
That Darvish was on top of his game meant the Mets needed Scherzer to match the Padres ace. Instead, he fell way short.
“Baseball can take you to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows,” Scherzer said. “This is one of the lowest of lows.”
Ohio State climbed to No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 college football poll on Tuesday, LSU and Miami moved into the top five, and Florida State jumped back into the rankings at the expense of Alabama, which plummeted to its lowest spot in 17 seasons.
The defending national champion Buckeyes received 55 of 66 first-place votes to move up two spots after their win over preseason No. 1Texas. Ohio State is at the top of a regular-season poll for the first time since November 2015.
The Longhorns dropped to No. 7 as the media voters shuffled the rankings following a topsy-turvy Labor Day weekend. It was only the second time — and first since 1972 — that two top-five teams lost in Week 1 and the first time that four top-10 teams lost.
Only three teams in the Top 25 are in the same spot they were in the preseason poll.
Penn State got seven first-place votes and remained No. 2. LSU, which received three first first-place votes, was followed by Georgia and Miami to round out the top five.
The biggest movers in the poll were Florida State and Alabama after the Seminoles’ 31-17 victory in their head-to-head matchup.
The Seminoles, who were 15 spots outside the Top 25 in the preseason, are now No. 14. The Crimson Tide fell all the way from No. 8 to No. 21 — their lowest ranking since Bama was No. 24 in the 2008 preseason poll. That was the second of Nick Saban’s 17 teams in Tuscaloosa.
It’s been quite a turnabout for Florida State. The Seminoles were No. 10 in the 2024 preseason, lost their first two games, finished 2-10 and weren’t ranked again until now.
Utah, at No. 25, joins Florida State as the only newcomers to this week’s poll. The Utes are ranked for the first time since last October, when they were at the front end of a seven-game losing streak.
Utah had received the second-most points, behind BYU, among teams outside the preseason Top 25, but the Utes got more credit for beatingUCLA on the road than the Cougars received for hammering FCS foe Portland State.
Boise State, which had been No. 25, received no votes following its 34-7 loss at South Florida. The Broncos had appeared in 14 straight polls.
Ohio State is the first team to take over the top spot in the first regular-season poll since Alabama in 2012. It was the biggest jump to No. 1 in the first regular-season poll since USC was promoted from No. 3 in 2008.
Texas’ fall was the biggest for a preseason No. 1 since Auburn dropped to No. 8 in the first regular-season poll of 1984.
LSU has its highest ranking after Week 1 since it was No. 3 in 2012, and Miami has its highest ranking after Week 1 since it was No. 5 in 2004.
South Carolina is in the top 10 in the regular season for the first time since it was No. 8 in December 2013.
No. 15 Michigan at No. 18 Oklahoma: This weekend’s game will be the first meeting since Oklahoma beat the Wolverines in the Orange Bowl to win the 1975 national championship. Wolverines freshman QB Bryce Underwood gets put to the test in his second start.
College football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.
While Dabo Swinney isn’t inflating LSU‘s grade for beating his team in Saturday’s season opener, Brian Kelly is ready to give the Clemson coach an incomplete for his evaluation.
Both coaches weighed in Tuesday on how LSU’s 17-10 win at Clemson should be viewed. After trailing 10-3 at halftime, LSU outscored Clemson 14-0 in the second half and finished with significant edges in both total yards (354-261) and first downs (25-13).
LSU rose six spots to No. 3 in the AP Top 25 poll Tuesday, while Clemson dropped four spots to No. 8.
“It was a helluva game, down to the last play,” Swinney said in his weekly news conference. “Right out of the gate. It’s like getting the final exam [on] Day 1 of class. They made a 65; we made a 58. Neither one of us were great.”
Kelly had not won a season opener at LSU before Saturday, and the victory was his first with the Tigers against an AP top-5 opponent.
“I thought we dominated them in the second half, so he’s really a really good grader for giving himself a 58, or he’s a really hard grader on us,” Kelly said in his news conference when told about Swinney’s comment.
“Or he didn’t see the second half, which, that might be the case. He might not have wanted to see the second half.”
Kelly added that LSU is moving on to this week’s game against Louisiana Tech.
“Clemson is a darn good football team,” Kelly said. “That’s a top-notch team, and they’re going to be a team in the hunt for [the] playoff picture. We hope we are, too. But it was only one game. So I don’t know if he’s a hard grader or an easy grader, but I like the way that we played in the second half.”
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said Bryce Underwood “looks to be wise beyond his years” and compared Michigan‘s freshman quarterback to former Clemson national championship QB Trevor Lawrence on Tuesday ahead of the No. 18 Sooners’ Week 2 visit from the No. 15 Wolverines.
Underwood, ESPN’s No. 1 overall recruit in the 2025 class, will make his second career start at Oklahoma on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
The coveted freshman earned Michigan’s starting job at the end of fall camp, beating out a collection of experienced passers on the depth chart including offseason portal additions Mikey Keene (Fresno State) and Jake Garcia (East Carolina). Underwood delivered a smooth college debut against New Mexico in Week 1, completing 21 of 31 passes for 251 yards and a touchdown in Michigan’s 34-17 win.
At Oklahoma, Underwood is set to face a much stiffer challenge against Venables, who resumed control of the Sooners’ defensive playcalling ahead of the 2024 season, and an experienced defense that held Illinois State to 151 yards of total offense in Week 1.
The former Clemson defensive coordinator compared Underwood to Lawrence, the five-star quarterback prospect who started as a freshman in 2018 and led the Tigers to a national championship win over Alabama.
“He’s a little different,” Venables said of Underwood. “It reminds me a lot of a Trevor Lawrence. Quick. Decisive. Accurate. Poised. Tough. Consistent. There’s a reason he was the No. 1 player in America. And he’s got a maturity and a work ethic and leadership agility to go along with that.”
As Oklahoma seeks to rebound from a 6-7 finish last fall, a new-look Sooners offense will get a test of its own Saturday.
Behind transfer QB John Mateer and first-year offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, Oklahoma gained 495 yards of offense in its 35-3, season-opening win over Illinois State. Mateer, who arrived in the offseason from Washington State alongside Arbuckle, passed Baker Mayfield for the most passing yards by an Oklahoma QB in a debut with 392 yards.
On Tuesday, Venables highlighted the Wolverines’ experience on defense, particularly in the front seven, as a defining challenge for the Sooners in an intriguing Week 2 matchup between two of college football’s most storied brands.
“[It’s] a defense that for the last several years has been one of the gold standards of college football when it comes to playing good defense,” Venables said. “It’s going to be a great physical matchup, and for us, a great litmus test to where we’re at.”