The Mets were cruising with a 12-run lead over the Rangers, so Texas threw in catcher Andrew Knizner as a relief pitcher to eat an inning. He lobbed soft tosses to the plate, and things got weird fast. Harrison Bader worked the count full, then roped a double on a 3-2 pitch. He pumped up the dugout with a couple of celebratory slaps and tossed some seeds at Max Scherzer, who was watching from the bench. Scherzer tried to chew them but mostly missed his mouth, laughing the whole time.
Pete Alonso stepped in next but wasn’t interested in swinging. He barely moved the bat and worked a walk, which irritated Scherzer, who yelled for Pete to swing and speed things up. Pete looked confused, thinking he’d get another pitch, but the ump called ball four and sent him to first. Scherzer kept messing around, fired up and chirping from the bench, calling for players to stop padding their stats and just put the ball in play.
The Rangers finally got a double play to end the threat, and Scherzer jokingly called for the umps to check Knizner for sticky stuff since he was “dominating.” Despite the blowout, the dugout had fun with the moment, especially Scherzer, who leaned all the way into the chaos of position-player pitching.