Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer star — just like Mets planned — in rare pitching-rich day

This was like catching a classic old-school double feature, let’s say “Casablanca” to start, “Citizen Kane” in the 2-hole. This was one of those old-timey rock festivals they used to have back in the day, maybe a little Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the afternoon and The Who at night. Back in the heyday of WNEW-FM there was two-fer Tuesday.

You’ve heard of Lollapalooza?

Sunday at Citi Field, the Mets offered up Cypalooza, an all-day baseball festival featuring three men with seven Cy Young award plaques, all of them seizing the opportunity to craft and create a day unlike any before in the 14-year history of Citi Field.

If there had been a concert poster to commemorate the day, it would’ve blared “MAX SCHERZER & JUSTIN VERLANDER (and special guest star Shane Bieber).” Across four hours and 36 minutes of crisp baseball on a sunny day in front of 69,857 combined customers, pitching ruled the day. As an added bonus for most of those witnesses, the Mets won another couple of thrilling one-run games.

“We all know what Max is capable of, and I’m hoping to hit my groove,” said Verlander, (CYA ’11, ’19, ’22) after the Mets had swept the Guardians 5-4 and 2-1 to move over .500 for the first time in a week and a half. “It’s how you draw it up on a day like today.”

“We’re a great team, and we know that and we haven’t been playing our best,” Scherzer (CYA ’13, ’16, ’17) said. “We need to find ways to win games right now instead of losing them.”

Scherzer threw six innings and 86 pitches and kept Cleveland off the scoreboard, and while he didn’t win his 205th career game because the Mets bullpen vultured him, he gritted through even though a blister on his thumb had cracked, forcing him to throw a heavy diet of curves, moving him to explain: “It’s like trying to play basketball on a sprained ankle.”

Verlander was even better: eight innings, 98 pitches, and after Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez sent his one bad pitch, a hanging curve, onto the Grand Central Parkway, Verlander was practically untouchable, earning career win. No. 246. And needed to be because Bieber (CYA ’20) was so good, burned only by one Francisco Lindor blast, another Lindor bloop and a pickoff throw that missed by about a half a millimeter. He threw a complete game and was in complete command.

But on this day, good as Bieber was, he was the warm-up act. That’s how good the Mets’ co-aces were, and how ardently they stepped up on a day when they were asked to provide Mets fans with what their season’s best-case scenario looks like. And this is it:

Two out of every five days, the Mets will send to the mound men for whom New York City is a mere station on the way to their final terminus, a few hours north in Cooperstown. And on those days when they are armed with the skill and the pitches that earned them that destination — and that hasn’t been a given, at all, so far this season — they can make the Mets’ possibilities seem endless.

Mets manager Buck Showalter surely enjoyed what he was watching from Scherzer and Verlander, and while he hadn’t had a chance to see Bieber’s work up close till now he was impressed by his highly efficient 106-pitch showing, too.

“History is history,” Showalter said, “and it’s hard to repeat it when you’re expected to do it. This is hard to do.”

It gets harder when you hit 40 (as Verlander has) and 39 (which Scherzer will in July), and harder still when your body starts to honor the calendar more than you’d like. Scherzer is dealing with, well, just about everything: thumb, shoulder, neck, and the lingering sting of his 10-game ban for a sticky substance. Verlander started the season on the IL, and Sunday was essentially the equivalent of what he’d normally expect from himself on a normal Opening Day.

Showalter is a clever manager. He hasn’t yet invented the fountain of youth — or at least he hasn’t publicized that he has — and so every pitch his co-aces throw is fraught with wonder. But that’s the deal the Mets made when they decided to hire both of them, and at good money. When it works — and Sunday it worked just like it’s drawn up on the blueprint — it can be something to see.

But there’s a lot of season left. Mostly, that’s been a comforting thought for the Mets as they’ve gurgled around .500. But it’s also a reminder of how much time and space there is between now and October. A lot can go wrong in that time. But as we saw Sunday at Citi in the first-ever Cypalooza, when it goes right, it goes wonderfully right.