NY Mets pitching matchup for next week’s home opener is perfectly scripted

Clay Holmes gets the ball for the New York Mets to start the 2025 season. He’ll do so against the Houston Astros on their soil this Thursday, March 27. On Friday April 4, card subject to change, everything lines up for Tylor Megill to start the home opener at Citi Field.

The Mets rotation will be Holmes, Megill, Griffin Canning, David Peterson, and Kodai Senga to begin the season. Playing in nothing but domes before coming to Citi Field, there’s little chance of this changing because the weather will not play a factor.

The same will apply for their first Citi Field opponent. The Toronto Blue Jays open the season with seven games at home. They’ll play the Baltimore Orioles for four games followed by the Washington Nationals for three. An off-day on Thursday for both teams to travel to Queens, the projected starting pitching matchup is the Mets’ 2022 Opening Day starter, Megill, against the guy they handed the ball to the following year to begin the season, Max Scherzer.

Max Scherzer can't avoid Mets Opening Day even if he leaves the country

While not the official Opening Day for either ball club, Scherzer has a history of being present for the first game of the Mets season. He started against the Mets twice on Opening Day as a member of the Washington Nationals. First in 2015 when New York won 3-1. He did so again in 2019 when the Nationals lost again, 2-0. In his lone true Opening Day start for the Mets in 2023, the orange and blue were victorious by a score of 5-3.

The Mets opened up at home for the first time since 2020 last season. Removing that odd season, they hadn’t done so since 2018 when they defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 9-4. We’ll, yet again, get our first looks at the regular season Mets in the road uniforms before they come back home a week later for what is assumed to be a lesser chance at inclement weather.

Last year’s Opening Day, which took place at Citi Field, couldn’t have been memorable yet forgettable. Perhaps it was the pent-up energy from having to wait a day due to the rain which pushed the game back a day. A hard slide into second base had Jeff McNeil and Rhys Hoskins jawing enough to lead to a benches-clearing brawl. Any hits thrown during the melee would have been appreciated because the team would record only one with their bats. A second inning solo home run off the bat of Starling Marte was it.

Vibes around the Mets at last year’s home opener versus this year will be much different. A hero’s welcome if all goes well in Houston and Miami on top of the already enormous expectations as well as appreciation fans will want to share for what happened last year. The stink of 2023 hadn’t rubbed off yet, Scherzer’s openness to getting traded representing a club that gave up too early. In some ways appropriate he’ll be in attendance and pitching, this represents a change of attitude and style in which the organization has handled things.

Plus, the Mets tend to win on an Opening Day where Scherzer is on the mound regardless of the uniform.