Scherzer focused on details, not result, in opening night preview

The matchup was eye-popping on paper, the rare March 21 matchup that actually got people excited. Max Scherzer versus Jacob deGrom. A majority of regulars in the lineup for both the Nationals and Mets. Including both pitchers electing to bat against each other in an opening night preview 11 days early!

And, yes, both pitchers have officially been named opening night starters, Mets manager Luis Rojas having announced deGrom earlier this month and Nats manager Davey Martinez having finally confirmed it today.

"He's the guy that gets everything started for us," Martinez said.

Today's result didn't quite live up to the anticipated hype, at least from the Nats' perspective. Though he cruised through his first three innings, Scherzer ran into trouble in the fourth and fifth. He gave up a pair of homers (one to Michael Conforto, one to Francisco Lindor) and uncorked a run-scoring wild pitch, ultimately surrendering four runs in five innings.

DeGrom, meanwhile, didn't allow a run over 4 2/3 innings, striking out five as the Mets coasted to a 6-2 exhibition victory in West Palm Beach, Fla.

It was the kind of result that surely left the skeptical among Nationals supporters wringing their hands and fearing this was an omen of bad things to come.

To them, Scherzer has some important words of caution.

"You kind of look at it as a whole, kind of as a whole spring training (performance)," he said during his post-start Zoom session with reporters. "I've thrown a handful, fourth start now. Things I've done well, things I haven't done well. ...

"Obviously today, I had some stressful innings. I had a high pitch count there in the first. That mimics the season. It's never just easy up and down. I wish it was, but it's not. It's good to have to grind through some innings, have some pitch counts, throw out of stretch, move from stretch to windup, kind of all the things that happen during the year. Those things matter most about how you try to gauge what's going on."

It may sound like a tired spring training cliché, the pitcher brushing off poor results because he was "working on things," but there is some truth to it. Especially for an accomplished veteran like Scherzer, who takes a far different approach into these exhibitions than others who may feel the need to make a positive impression.

Take the two homers Scherzer gave up today. Yes, each came off a pitch that didn't go where Scherzer wanted it to. But in each case, he was specifically trying to do something on that pitch he might not have tried to do if the game counted.

To Conforto, Scherzer tried a rare first-pitch changeup. The intention: just get it over the plate, catch him by surprise and get a quick strike to open the at-bat. The problem: Conforto was ready for it and hammered it to center field.

"Hey, that's something you've got to be able to do: Dump a changeup in," Scherzer said. "If he's sitting changeup, and he's going to swing at a changeup, it's a homer, and that's what happened. I know throwing a strike changeup with him can be dangerous, but you've got to be able to do stuff like that. And when you don't execute it all the way, it's a homer. Good. He hits a homer, and you move on."

To Lindor, who batted with a runner on first, Scherzer was focused on pitching with a slide-step for one of the first times this spring, a key part of his increased attempt to slow down the running game. He wound up leaving a fastball over the plate, and Lindor belted it down the right-field line.

"He should hit that for a homer, if I miss like that right over the middle of the plate," Scherzer said. "So that's the beauty of (spring training): You can really focus on the minutia that you can really dive in on. So for me, it was: 'Hey, really try to slide-step here and be quicker to the plate and see how that feels.' I did it and pulled a fastball. So now when you go back the next start, now you know: Hey, really stay through it and know how to execute pitches in that situation."

These are the kinds of things a three-time Cy Young Award winner works on in spring training. That, and making sure his arm is ready to go for the regular season. Which Scherzer is confident will be the case after he reached the 90-pitch mark this afternoon.

Scherzer has only one more tune-up, and in order to line him up properly for opening night, it needs to come Saturday. The Nationals don't have a Grapefruit League game that day, so he'll instead be pitching against a group of extra Astros players in an organized B game on a back field behind the ballpark.

"That's a mental game, when you've got back field, no one in the stands," he said. "Kind of what we did last year (with no fans allowed). ... Know that you have to bring almost more intensity to yourself to pitch in those back field games to be prepared for a situation where you're not going to have any fans in the stands whatsoever. So I can get a lot out of pitching on Saturday that will be useful for the season, as well."

One more opportunity to tinker, to test, to get everything in order.

And then everything's for real again.