NEW YORK -- Most of Major League Baseball's rule tweaks in recent years have been unpopular, but there are people in the Giants organization who didn't mind the seven-inning doubleheaders. They were good for player health, even if most fans hated them.
The Giants went back to nine innings on Tuesday at Citi Field, and it couldn't have gone much worse.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Logan Webb was pulled early in a 3-1 loss to the New York Mets and took his first loss since last May 5, ending a franchise-record streak of 24 consecutive starts without one. The Giants got swept in their first doubleheader of the season and managed just two hits in the second game.
The bats went silent after scoring four runs in the first three innings of the first game, but that was nothing compared to the first two-thirds of the nightcap.
Scherzer struck out the first two batters of the game and got two more in the second. Through five innings, he had allowed just a walk while striking out seven.
With just 67 pitches through five, Scherzer had a shot at taking a crack at his third no-hitter. Darin Ruf ended those plans with a single in the sixth, and the Giants got enough pitches out of Scherzer in that inning that the Mets' bullpen came into play.
That almost paid off for the Giants right away. Mike Yastrzemski hit a 359-foot skyscraper to right that looked like it would tie the game, but on a 45-degree night, the ball died on the warning track. Yastrzemski looked on in disbelief at a ball that would have been out of 10 ballparks, per Statcast data.
Rough Day for CobbWebb
San Francisco Giants
Alex Cobb's start in the afternoon was cut short by an injury in the fifth inning, and perhaps that was going through Gabe Kapler's mind as he watched Logan Webb labor through his first career start in New York. Webb was pulled after just 3 2/3 innings, which -- other than an intentionally short start as he came back from an injury last summer -- was his shortest outing since last May 5 at Coors Field.
Webb wasn't particularly sharp and left some balls up as the Mets scored three runs with two outs in the third. Eduardo Escobar's two-run double was the big blow.
An inning later, Webb walked Brandon Nimmo with two outs and seemed a bit surprised as Kapler came out and called for a reliever. Webb was at just 75 pitches, but perhaps Kapler wanted to save his arm a bit and not risk injury on a cold night.
Webb had just one strikeout, his fewest in a start since Sept. 18, 2020. For the first time in 15 starts, he walked more than two batters.
Mad Max
The Giants probably won't mind if they don't see Scherzer again until, like, 2024. In their first game against him since Game 5 of the NLDS, the only baserunner through five innings was a Curt Casali walk.
Scherzer opened the sixth with strikeouts of Jason Vosler and Casali and it started to feel like something historic would happen, but walks of Mike Yastrzemski and Brandon Belt assured that, at best, it would be a combined no-hitter. On Scherzer's 92nd pitch, Ruf yanked a low changeup into left to get the Giants their first hit and first run.
Scherzer came back out for a quick seventh, ending his night by freezing Steven Duggar for his 10th strikeout. The double-digit strikeout game was Scherzer's 105th in the big leagues, a comically-high number. He has four of them against the Giants in the last six seasons and also did it in his NLDS start last October.
Long Relief
The big question after the first game was what the Giants will do with their rotation, and team officials were already huddling to discuss moves before Cobb officially went on the IL.
RELATED: Why Giants optioned Williams despite solid start to season
Left-hander Sam Long is perhaps the best candidate, having already taken on the spot starter role several times last year, and he certainly impressed in a relief performance after Webb departed. Long stranded the runner and then struck out a pair in a perfect fifth inning.
The Giants have several options for Saturday's game, although the easiest seems to just be a bullpen game with Long as the starter and Tyler Beede and others providing depth.