Familiar vibe for Nats in opening day loss to Mets

It's opening day, and that inevitably leads to two things from fans and media alike: excessive optimism and overblown pessimism, based solely on the results of the first game of a 162-game marathon.

A team's record on opening day bears no connection to its record on Oct. 1, and anyone who thinks otherwise need only look back one year ago when the Nationals beat the Reds by a 2-0 count in their opener and stormed out to four straight wins to give everyone reason for excessive optimism en route to a disappointing 82-80 conclusion.

And yet, it's impossible not to view today's season-opening loss to the Mets - also by a 2-0 count - without feeling some pangs of pessimism based on what just took place on a picture-perfect March afternoon in front of 42,263 fans who want to believe this year's team will be different than the previous one.

The reasons for those pangs? Poor offensive execution with runners in scoring position. Baserunning blunders. Curious bullpen usage that led to a key tack-on run scoring late. And a wasted gem by Max Scherzer.

Scherzer was brilliant in his 2019 debut, striking out 12 batters over 7 2/3 innings and throwing 109 pitches. But the Nationals ace was charged with two runs - one via Robinson Canó's first-inning homer, the other an inherited runner who scored in the eighth off the bullpen - and that's two more runs than Mets ace (and reigning Cy Young Award winner) Jacob deGrom allowed during his six-inning start.

Add three scoreless frames from the New York bullpen, and the Nationals were left to stew over a nip-and-tuck loss, a feeling they had much of last season.

The pregame ceremony had hints of familiarity - James Brown reading player intros over the PA system, a giant American flag unfurled across the outfield as a military flyover capped the signing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" - and then the game began and the hints of familiarity continued, in both good and bad ways.

The good: Scherzer was up to his old tricks, doling out swings-and-misses like fun-sized Snickers bars on Halloween. He opened his season with back-to-back strikeouts of Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso, firing up the crowd. But then came another familiar sight: a big slugger taking advantage of one Scherzer mistake and making the ace pay for it.

Scherzer's 1-1 changeup to Canó found too much of the plate, and the Mets' new No. 3 hitter tagged it to left-center for the season's first home run, bringing a hush back to the crowd.

Not that Scherzer was fazed. He promptly struck out Michael Conforto to end the first and then settled in for his latest pitching masterpiece. He allowed only one other clean hit before he departed - old batterymate Wilson Ramos' two-out single in the fourth - and kept piling up the strikeouts.

By the time he caught Alonso looking at a 96 mph fastball in the sixth, Scherzer had secured the 86th double-digit strikeout game of his career. Trouble is, the guy pitching for the opposition was just as electric. And he didn't make the one critical mistake that cost Scherzer.

DeGrom also reached the 10-strikeout mark in the sixth inning, and in the process ensured a bit of history here on South Capitol Street today. Scherzer and deGrom became only the second pitching opponents to each strike out 10 or more batters on opening day in major league history, duplicating a feat previously done only by the Orioles' Dave McNally and the Indians' Sam McDowell on April 7, 1970.

The Nationals did give themselves more chances against deGrom than the Mets gave themselves against Scherzer. But they didn't take advantage of those chances, and in some cases flat-out botched them.

With two on and two out in the first, Ryan Zimmerman scorched a line drive to third, only to be robbed by a quick-reflexed Jeff McNeil on a diving catch to his left. Not much they could do about that.

But there was much the Nats could've done about the bottom of the third, when they had runners on the corners with nobody out and squandered it away. Trea Turner, needing only to put bat on ball to get the tying run home, swung wildly a couple of times and struck out. And when Anthony Rendon grounded to third, disaster struck.

Victor Robles, dancing off third base, held up on contact but then broke for the plate as the throw went to second base for the force out. An astute Canó, though, stepped on second and immediately threw back to the plate, getting the dumbfounded Robles in a rundown that ended the inning and left the crowd groaning over a baserunning gaffe that looked eerily familiar.

The Nationals still trailed only 1-0 in the sixth when they gave themselves yet another opportunity to score off deGrom, thanks to Turner's second and third stolen bases of the afternoon. But the heart of the order couldn't get him home; Juan Soto struck out on a 3-2 changeup and Zimmerman skied a fly ball to right on the first pitch he saw to kill that rally.

That 1-0 deficit remained into the eighth, with Scherzer still on the mound, left in to bat for himself with two outs and nobody on the seventh. He would face three more batters, walking one around two more strikeouts, then departing to a rousing ovation at the end of a 109-pitch opening day effort.

He would be charged with another run, though, after relievers Justin Miller and Matt Grace each gave up a two-out looping single to the shallow outfield, capped by Canó's RBI hit off Grace.

It was now 2-0, and the Nationals were left scrambling to make up for their offensive deficiencies earlier in the game. Again, a scene that may have struck some in attendance as all too familiar.