BOSTON — Max Scherzer provided quite the Fenway Park tour Saturday night.
It started when the Mets right-hander gave up a home run off the Pesky Pole in right field.
Then came a homer to deep right and another over the Green Monster.
Scherzer’s horror show concluded with a visit by one of his pitches to the center field bleachers.
Scherzer matched a career high with four homers allowed, sending the Mets to an 8-6 loss to the Red Sox, their second defeat in three games.
In the resumption of a suspended game from Friday, the Mets received a strong bullpen performance and won 5-4.
But the Mets still ended the day six games below .500, with seven games remaining before the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
Scherzer was nowhere close to the dominant force he was during his previous start, when he one-hit the Dodgers over seven innings.
He allowed solo homers to Jarren Duran and Triston Casas, leading off the first and second innings, to fall into a 2-0 hole.
Duran hit a curveball off the right-field foul pole leading off the game for the Red Sox and Casas blasted a cutter for a homer to start the second inning.
Jeff McNeil’s two-run single in the fourth inning and dash around the bases after a throwing error tilted the momentum in the Mets’ favor.
As McNeil advanced to second on his single that drove in Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso, Boston catcher Jorge Alfaro’s throw sailed past the base — and beyond Duran in center fielder.
That allowed McNeil to advance the final 180 feet. Lindor’s single and Alonso’s double against James Paxton had started the rally.
But Yu Chang’s homer leading off the fifth tied it 3-3. Chang hit a Scherzer slider over the Green Monster.
Casas’ two-run rocket on a fastball into the center-field bleachers in the sixth inning placed the Mets in a 5-3 hole.
It marked the fourth time in his career Scherzer had allowed four homers in his game.
It had last happened on April 6, 2021 when he was pitching for the Nationals against the Braves.
Overall, he allowed five earned runs on six hits with seven strikeouts and two walks as his ERA surged to 4.20.
He has allowed nine homers in his last four starts.
Justin Turner delivered a two-run homer against Trevor Gott in the seventh inning to complete Boston’s rampage in the second game.
Francisco Alvarez, Mark Vientos and Brett Baty each delivered RBI singles in the ninth to slice the Mets’ deficit.
It went better for the Mets on Saturday afternoon in the resumption of the game that was suspended by rain: Grant Hartwig, David Peterson, Dominic Leone, Brooks Raley and David Robertson combined to allow just one run over 4 ²/₃ innings of relief.
The Mets squeezed out one run, enough to supplement a pair of two-run homers from Brandon Nimmo and Daniel Vogelbach on Friday night before heavy rain stopped the game in the fourth inning and forced a suspension after nearly a two-hour delay.
“It’s one thing to map out potentially what you would like to do,” manager Buck Showalter said, referring to the bullpen. “It’s another thing to get the other team to cooperate with you … people did their job and it allowed us to stay in turn to where they are best equipped to get outs.”
The rookie Hartwig had scuffled in his last two appearances after a strong start to his Mets career, but he rebounded Saturday with two scoreless innings.
He took the ball as the game resumed in the bottom of the fourth with one out and he departed with one out in the sixth.
“I just did my job — I was going until they told me I couldn’t,” Hartwig said. “That’s all I was planning to do and my job was to get it to the guys at the end of the game.”
Hartwig said the extended duty — pitching in parts of three innings — was a challenge he knew he could handle.
“Most guys that have been in the bullpen have been starters most of their lives,” Hartwig said. “That third up-down really doesn’t make a huge difference for me. But going in with a mindset of going for length definitely changes the approach a little bit more.
“You kind of want to be more on attack with your pitches and keep that pitch-count low.”
Kodai Senga had allowed three earned runs on three hits and a walk over 3 ¹/₃ innings before the game was suspended on Friday.
That snapped a stretch of three straight starts in which the right-hander had allowed fewer than three earned runs.
