Mets reliever Trevor May thrown for curveball during trip from Seattle to Port St. Lucie

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Among the casualties of MLB’s lockout and the sudden start of spring training: Trevor May’s recent sleep schedule.

It took him more than 40 hours to get from Seattle, where he lives in the offseason, to his temporary residence for camp. That hellish journey began Monday morning and ended in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

"If that’s a sign from the universe," the righthanded reliever said, "it’s not a good one."

May wanted to travel Sunday but couldn’t get a flight. So on Monday, the plan was to go from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale through Dallas. Weather redirected his plane to Oklahoma City, where he wound up spending the night. On Tuesday he changed airlines and went to Detroit and then on to Fort Lauderdale. He waited in line for an hour to get his rental car. Then he drove to his spring-training living space, which is almost an hour from the Mets’ facility instead of the five minutes he thought after he accidentally booked the wrong spot.

"I’ve slept about six hours the last few days," he said. "It was an excursion I really didn’t need to have right at that moment . . . It was an emotional roller coaster, not just the last five days but the last month. I just want things to kind of level out and be normal here for a bit."

After arriving at his destination around 1 a.m. Wednesday, he had to be at the ballpark around 6 a.m. It was photo day.

Play ball

Highlighting an intrasquad scrimmage Wednesday was Dominic Smith’s two home runs against Max Scherzer.

"They don’t count, so they don’t matter," a wide-smiling Smith said.

Manager Buck Showalter added: "Max would never throw him those pitches during the season."

Scherzer tossed four innings and 59 pitches against a lineup of mostly bench bats. He is getting antsy for the real(er) thing.

"Now I want fans," he said. "I want people yelling at me and telling me how much I [stink]. Can’t wait."

Tylor Megill (three innings), David Peterson (two) and Jordan Yamamoto (two) also pitched. Pete Alonso went out of his way to compliment Megill’s changeup after he struck out on it.

General manager Billy Eppler watched the goings-on, occasionally leaving his seat behind the plate to corral his two young sons, who enjoyed wandering around the mostly empty ballpark.

Chasen a job

The Mets and Chasen Shreve agreed to a minor-league deal with an invitation to spring training, a source said. He’ll try to win a major-league lefthanded reliever spot, a competition that includes fellow veterans Alex Claudio and Mike Montgomery.

Shreve had a 3.97 ERA with the Mets in 2020. He had a 3.20 ERA with the Pirates last year.

Time to makeup

The Mets will make up what was supposed to be their season-opening home series against the Nationals on Oct. 3-5. Their postponed two-game set against Atlanta will happen via doubleheaders at Citi Field on May 3 and Aug. 6. Both series were affected by the lockout-delayed season.

Also, the Mets moved Sunday home games to 1:40 p.m. to accommodate MLB’s new requirements for national broadcasts.