After a long wait, Max Scherzer gets his shot against the Mets

A day before taking the mound to begin a crucial series against the Mets, Max Scherzer watched his teammates complete a four-game sweep of the Braves, allowing the Nationals to gain 2 1/2 games on New York over the weekend.

"You just come to the park ready to play and do your job," Scherzer said of the Nats' focus. "You don't worry about what the Mets are doing or anything like that. I mean, even though we're in a playoff race with them, you just understand where you're at within the game. You focus on how you're gonna win your game and that's all you can worry about."

The Nationals won the four games decisively, outscoring the Braves 36-9. The Nats have run off five wins in a row and 13 of their last 19 since Aug. 18 to pull within four games of the first place Mets.

"They're all gonna be big the rest of the way," said Jayson Werth, who drilled a three-run homer in Sunday's 8-4 victory. "We need to win as many as we can. We got a big series coming up. We just need to keep grinding them out and playing the way we've been playing. I've been saying all along that at some point we're gonna make a run, so hopefully this is it."

Just as he did to start the season, Nationals manager Matt Williams has lined up right-handers Scherzer, Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg to battle the Mets over the next three days.

"We got a great staff," Bryce Harper said. "When you have three of your horses going in against a great Met team, I like our chances. They're very good and we're very good, also, so it's going to be a good three days, but we just need to worry about what we're doing as a team, what we're doing as an organization. If we pitch well, if we play well and hit well, then we'll be OK."

With the rotation missing him both times the Nats played the Mets in the second half of the season, Scherzer hasn't faced New York since May 4. In two starts against the Mets this season, Scherzer has allowed just one earned run while striking out 18 over 14 2/3 innings.

On opening day, Scherzer carried a no-hitter into the sixth against the Mets, but a couple errors from Ian Desmond derailed the momentum and the right-hander ended up taking a hard-luck 3-1 loss.

A month later at Citi Field, the only run Scherzer surrendered came on Michael Cuddyer's solo homer in the fourth. However, the Nats failed to score against Mets right-hander Matt Harvey and two relievers in a 4-0 shutout loss.

After dominating for most of the first four months of the season, Scherzer ran into trouble in August. His ERA skyrocketed to 6.43 while allowing seven homers in five outings.

But since a dismal three-inning, six-run performance in San Francisco on Aug. 14, Scherzer has regained his command after working on his mechanics.

In his last start, the Cardinals banged a season-high 11 hits off the right-hander, but Scherzer limited them to just two runs over six innings while fanning 10 to kickstart the Nats' current five-game winning streak.

"(The Mets) circled this on the calendar, we've circled it on our calendar," Scherzer said. "Look, they're gonna come ready to play. We're gonna give them everything we got. I mean, this is playoff baseball."