Francisco Lindor Headshot as Mets Beat Nationals

WASHINGTON — Major League Baseball’s highest paid player took the mound here Friday night, and the environment was certainly familiar. Max Scherzer During his six-and-a-half years at the Washington Nationals, he won the 2019 World Series and two of three Cy Young Awards, making it odd for many who saw him shot for a visiting episode rival and honored with a tribute video.

But the franchises’ final roles have changed. The restructured Nationals and Mets spent a lot of money in hopes of creating an end-of-season contender led by Scherzer, who is now 37.

Mets 7, Nationals 3

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On Friday, the Mets delivered the kind of seasoned, solid performance they had dreamed of giving Scherzer a shot. three-year, $130 million contract during the winter. Despite recovering from a minor hamstring injury, with 11 days between strokes, despite several delays—including a bench clearing incident caused by a step that hit teammate Francisco Lindor’s head in the fifth inning—and several errors on the mound, he defeated the Mets in game two of the regular season. He led a 7-3 win.

“It was phenomenal” for Scherzer, who allowed three laps and shot six in six innings, Mets manager Buck Showalter said. Scherzer, too, was content with what he was fighting.

“Even though I feel like I’m 100 percent and can get into it, you need to protect your leg in this situation,” he said. “But I didn’t want to risk anything else. You might get injured at some point, but if you go too hard, something else will hurt you.”

“You can go around injuries, and tonight was one of them.”

Scherzer’s debut came with tensions already high between the teams, as some Mets were annoyed by the team’s sustained hits in Thursday’s opening win of the season. The scariest of these came when the Mets’ first goalkeeper, Pete Alonso, was slapped on the lip by a field, and a worse outcome was averted thanks to the helmet hood covering part of his face. As he watched from the bunker, Mets right fielder Starling Marte held up three fingers to indicate the number of batting hits her teammates had taken that game, and expressed her displeasure at the Nationals field.

A day later, at the beginning of the fifth half, blood pressure rose. After midfielder Brandon Nimmo tripled, Marte took a 4-3 lead over the Mets with a pair chasing Nationals starting pitcher Josiah Gray from the game. Lindor stood up as he threw the ball in at-bat’s second court against the national team’s relief pitcher Steve Cishek.

But the ball took off and slammed into what’s called the c-wing on Lindor’s helmet. It completely knocked over the helm and knocked Lindor down. The Mets bunker responded angrily with third base coach Joey Cora and Showalter shouting at Cishek.

Both rows soon emptied and jugs burst from the barracks. Players and coaches got in each other’s faces, some were holding each other and shouting. Juan Soto, a star outfielder for the nationals, wrapped his arm around Lindor as he wandered towards the offensive area.

“I am proud to be the New York Met,” Lindor later said. “I got shot, I’m on the ground and I look up and the whole crew is outside.”

After the players and coaches returned to their bunkers, the referees fired Cishek because they felt that Cishek escalated the conflict by not walking away from the attack. They also fired Nationals third base coach Gary DiSarcina for escalating the situation.

As with Alonso, the c-flap saved Lindor from further injury. The Mets said X-rays on his face were negative and he passed tests for concussion. After the match, Lindor said he was lucky to avoid a worse fate.

“One of my teeth may be broken, but it’s okay,” he added, then hinting at the nickname Mr. Smile, “I can still smile.”

After the match, Lindor also announced that Cishek apologized for the pitch. He added, “They open and they come in and they miss their point. I won’t go into whether it’s intentional or not. It’s a game.”

Showalter says, “It’s scary at first. At times like this, fourth, I really don’t want to hear about intent.”

The clash came on a day of few delays or interruptions: a 14-minute delay to the first pitch due to problems with the lights in Nationals Park, a clearing incident, a rain delay in the ninth inning. Scherzer didn’t let any of them bother him.

He started his second game of the season, not the opening game, due to a leg injury that occurred in the last days of spring practice. He was the obvious candidate to replace first-day starter Mets ace Jacob deGrom and would likely be out for months with a shoulder injury in the final days of spring practice.

But Scherzer, whose off-season contract set an MLB record for the highest average annual salary ($43.3 million per year), still needed a little more time to recover. A day before his debut at the Mets, Scherzer announced that he felt ready enough to start on Friday and could manage his leg.

Against the nationals, Scherzer wasn’t the sharpest, but he did enough to get over his mistakes. With the Mets leading 3-1 on the fourth inning, the designated hitter gave Nelson Cruz a single cough. Then, against first baseman Josh Bell, Scherzer threw a fastball from the center of the plate and instantly knew he had made a mistake. Bell slammed into the right midfielders for a two-round blast that tied the game.

But the Mets bounced right back. Marte put the team ahead in the heated fifth half, then added two running singles. Second baseman Jeff McNeil, who scored on the third inning, added a run score to seventh – providing more breathing room for the Mets and Scherzer.

“It’s just a crazy wild experience,” Scherzer told the Nationals. “It’s almost good that this is the first. Get it out of the way and let’s move on and keep moving forward. There are so many good memories here, but the team is different.”