Max Scherzer gives Mets everything they paid for in Braves domination

Max Scherzer was making noise in the corner of an otherwise quiet Mets clubhouse. This was following Sunday’s dispiriting loss to the Marlins, and the ace seemed intent on altering the mood.

As he finished dressing, Scherzer loudly and jokingly admonished a couple of teammates who weren’t present at their lockers for not packing up sooner, and loudly announced his plan to catch some necessary sleep on the flight to Atlanta.

More than anything, Scherzer was interested in making his presence felt. He’s done that better than just about every pitcher of his generation, or any generation.

So Monday night, when the Mets opened a three-game series that’s as meaningful as any three-game series in July can be, it was no surprise that Scherzer’s presence was powerful enough to stop in its tracks the runaway locomotive that was the second-place Braves. The Mets needed him to impose his will on a deteriorating divisional situation, and impose his will he did.

Scherzer was the driving force behind the Mets’ 4-1 victory, their biggest victory of the year. He retired 20 of the first 21 batters he faced, and could have gone 21 for 21 had Luis Guillorme, normally a second baseman with Charmin-soft hands, come up with a hard Robinson Cano grounder that Guillorme usually handles. The Mets had given Scherzer a 2-0 lead to play with, and even after Austin Riley’s homer and Marcell Ozuna’s double, the ace wasn’t about to let Atlanta get back to even par.

With the tying run in scoring position, Scherzer twice shook off Tomas Nido before nodding and throwing a nasty 1-2 cutter to Eddie Rosario. “This is the game,” he told himself. “If I make a mistake with this pitch, he can hit that pitch for a homer.” As it turned out, Rosario didn’t stand a chance. Scherzer responded to the strikeout with a vigorous fist pump. He knew that his night was over, and that his masterpiece was complete.

“I think Max rises to a lot of moments, but that was fun to watch,” Buck Showalter said. “I had a good seat. … That was something.”

Something the Mets absolutely had to have.

In the top of the eighth, Guillorme settled his debt by blasting a home run to restore the Mets’ two-run lead, inspiring Scherzer to smack his hand on the dugout railing and pump his fist again while Francisco Lindor was grabbing at his shoulders from behind.

Adam Ottavino survived a scare in the bottom of that inning, and Edwin Diaz struck out the side without breaking a sweat in the ninth, advancing his improbably brilliant season. On a night the Mets were paying Cano to compete against them, it was worth recalling that their controversial trade for Cano is the reason they employ Diaz. Asked the other day what he had learned about his closer that he didn’t know when he got the job, Buck Showalter responded, “He ain’t scared.”

That makes him a member of Scherzer’s fearless club. Old Max, as in the soon-to-be-38-year-old Scherzer, schooled Young Max, as in the 28-year-old Fried. Scherzer surrendered three hits and walked none over seven innings, striking out nine. In 13 innings since returning from his oblique injury, Scherzer has allowed one run and struck out 20 without walking a soul.

This is exactly what team owner Steve Cohen bargained for when he agreed to give Scherzer a record average annual salary of $43.3 million over three years. Cohen had charged new GM Billy Eppler to “go get the players we need. We want to be competitive, we want to win our division and be in the playoffs and get deep into the playoffs. We’ve got to field a team that has the ability to do that.”

A team with Scherzer and Jacob deGrom at the top of the order would surely have the ability to do that.

But deGrom is still trying to get back on a big-league mound, with his next rehab stop in Triple-A Syracuse on Thursday. Meanwhile, staring down his biggest start as a Met, Scherzer just lowered his ERA to 2.15, the second-best mark of his 15-year career.

This was hardly an easy ask, especially without two of the team’s four All-Stars — Jeff McNeil (paternity leave) and Starling Marte (injured groin). The Mets were still 20 games over .500 at the start of this series, but they have shown recent vulnerabilities that the Braves have capitalized on for the sake of old times. Down 10 ½ games on June 1, Atlanta had won 29 of 37 entering Monday night to cut the deficit to 1 ½, and to remind the Mets’ fatalistic fan base of its domination since joining the NL East in the mid-1990s.

If you’re scoring at home, the Braves have won the division 16 times since making the jump from the NL West, while the Mets have won it twice.

Scherzer was hired to change all of that, and to stand in the way of Atlanta winning a second straight World Series crown. He said that he wants his younger, less experienced teammates to feed off the playoff-like adrenaline of these defining regular-season games. “Don’t shy away from it,” Scherzer said. “You’ve got to rise to the occasion and match it.”

Max Scherzer rose to the occasion Monday night like only he can, and made a whole lot of noise. Who says an aging pitcher can’t possibly be underpaid at $43.3 million a pop?