Mets takeaways from Thursday's 5-3 Opening Day win over Marlins, including Brandon Nimmo's three RBI

The Mets continued their tradition as masters of the Season Opener, defeating the Marlins 5-3 in Miami on Thursday to raise their record in openers to 41-21, the best such record in the majors.

Here are the top takeaways from the win:

- The season-ending injury to Edwin Diaz puts the spotlight on the bullpen as the season begins, and David Robertson made sure it wouldn’t be an issue in Game 1, closing out the win with a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his first save as a Met.

Robertson got away with a hanging slider that Garrett Cooper drove foul, but promptly struck him out with one of his signature curveballs that broke down into the dirt.

Likewise he got Jazz Chisholm to chase a curve ball at the ankles for a strikeout and beat Jorge Soler with a fastball for a routine fly ball to right field.

Overall the bullpen delivered three scoreless innings in relief of Max Scherzer, as Drew Smith and newcomer Brooks Raley worked scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth, respectively.

Each of them racked up two strikeouts, and the lefty Raley looked like he could be a very good pick-up, striking out lefty-hitting Luis Arraez with a 91-mph sinker away and then righthanded-hitting Jon Berti with a changeup that broke down and away.

- Scherzer was one out away from a dominant start, but a mistake fastball in the sixth inning cost him when Cooper drove it over the wall in right-center for a game-tying two-run home run.

Scherzer had already given up a run in the sixth after five shutout innings, so his final line didn’t look as impressive as he pitched. In six innings, he gave up three runs on four hits and two walks while striking out six.

He still earned the win, thanks to the Mets’ rally in the seventh, and for the most part he looked like the Scherzer of old, masterfully mixing all of his pitches, keeping the Marlins’ hitters off-balance. But his outing was tarnished by that mistake fastball to Cooper, right down the middle at 93 mph, and that’s something that bears watching with the Mets’ co-ace.

He doesn’t have quite the pop on his fastball as he once did, and mistakes with that pitch cost him against the San Diego Padres in his forgettable Wild Card series start last October.

- For all the gnashing of teeth during the offseason about the Mets needing to add one more impact hitter, and preferably with power, the opener was a reminder of how and why they scored the fifth-highest total of runs in the majors last year.

That is, that they made a lot of contact, striking out only four times, and delivered when it counted, taking advantage of run-scoring opportunities to get to Sandy Alcantara, the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner.

It started with Brandon Nimmo, who had a big day at the plate, driving in three runs.

His excellent two-strike hitting against Alcantara gave the Mets a 1-0 lead: with runners at first and third and one out in the third inning, Nimmo went with a 2-2 outside fastball and drove a line drive to left that was caught, but deep enough to score Daniel Vogelbach for a sacrifice fly.

It was especially impressive considering that Nimmo had struggled throughout his career against Alcantara. At the time of his line drive sac fly, Nimmo was 4-for-30 (.133) lifetime against the right-hander.

Francisco Lindor produced a similar good piece of hitting in the sixth inning to deliver the Mets’ second run. With runners at second and third and one out, Lindor drove a chest-high 0-2 fastball from Alacantara to deep center for another sac fly, as Nimmo scored easily from third.

Finally, Nimmo delivered a double to the gap in right-center to score two runs and break a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning.

- There was only one major issue with the new pitch clock, when a strike was called on Jeff McNeil in the sixth inning because Pete Alonso took too long returning to first base after a foul ball, preventing McNeil from being ready in the batter’s box on time.

Manager Buck Showalter came out of the dugout to get an explanation and clearly wasn’t happy, but the call stood, putting McNeil in an 0-2 hole in a key situation, with runners at first and third and two outs.

However, McNeil made the call irrelevant when he grounded a single up the middle, delivering Starling Marte from third to give the Mets a 3-0 lead.

- Good sign for the Mets that Marte wasted no time in stealing his first base of the season after walking in the fourth inning.

Two years ago Marte led the majors with 47 stolen bases in 52 attempts while splitting the season between the Marlins and A’s, but last year he stole only 18 bases while getting thrown out nine times, in part because he was hampered by leg injuries.

This spring, Marte said he intended to run more again, in part because of the bigger bases that MLB has installed that shorten the distance by 4.5 inches.

Highlights

What's next

The Mets and Marlins play the second of four on Friday at 6:40 p.m. on SNY.

David Peterson will face fellow lefty Jesus Luzardo.