As the Dodgers prepare to fly to New York to take on the Mets, the NL East leaders are looking forward to the matchup against Los Angeles, the only team in baseball with a better record than them.
One member of that Mets team is Max Scherzer, who spent the last few months of the 2021 season in a Dodgers uniform before signing a three-year contract with New York in the offseason.
Scherzer is having a typically great season, posting a 9-4 record and a 2.27 ERA with 148 strikeouts in 122.2 innings. Mad Max won't be pitching in the series against the Dodgers, but he's looking forward to it all the same, as Gary Phillips writes in the New York Times.
“They’ve had a great season so far in what they’ve been able to do,” said Max Scherzer, the Mets’ co-ace who pitched for Los Angeles last year after a midseason trade from the Nationals. “You play this game to face the best. Obviously, they’ve been one of the best teams in all of baseball, so for them to come into town, you want to beat them. So it’s a great opportunity for us, a great challenge for us to go out there and face them.”
Mets manager Buck Showalter concurred with Scherzer's assessment of the Dodgers.
“They’re one of the best teams in baseball,” he said. “It’s a good series for the fans. We don’t look forward to it necessarily. What you look forward to is the competition of facing a really good team.”
The Mets will send Taijuan Walker, Jacob deGrom, and Chris Bassitt to the mound in the three-game series with Los Angeles, and the Dodgers will counter with Andrew Heaney and Tyler Anderson in the first two games. The third game could be Dustin May, unless the Dodgers decide to start Clayton Kershaw, who is returning from the injured list this week.
Either way, this three-game clash of titans should be a lot of fun to watch.
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