PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Entering Spring Training, first baseman Dominic Smith had been 0-for-16 with seven strikeouts in his career against longtime division rival Max Scherzer. But when Smith stepped to the plate against Scherzer on Wednesday to lead off the second inning of a simulated game, he cranked a solo homer onto the right-field berm. An inning later he did it again, hitting the ball even harder to nearly the same spot.

“He’s never hit those pitches against me [in the past],” Scherzer said afterward, laughing. “No, good for him. I hope he can hit those pitches. He put two really good swings on the ball.”

Asked about his pair of home runs, Smith smiled and quipped: “They don’t count, so it doesn’t matter.”

Still, the performance was noteworthy for Smith, and not only because of his past struggles against Scherzer. Entering camp, Smith is a man without a position. Although there is a chance the Mets could look to trade him, just as likely is the possibility that he stays and cobbles together at-bats as a part-time designated hitter, a part-time first baseman and a part-time left fielder.

If Smith performs the way he did in 2020, when he finished 13th in NL MVP voting after hitting .316/.377/.616 with 10 home runs in 50 games, he won’t find it particularly difficult to amass plate appearances. But if he performs more like he did last season, when he stumbled to a .244/.304/.363 slash line, playing time could be more difficult to find.

For Smith, Wednesday provided a memorable start against one of the game’s best pitchers, who allowed no other damage over four innings.

“You actually want that,” Scherzer said of the Smith home runs. “You want to experience failure. You want guys to hit your pitches. If you go through and chew up everybody, it doesn’t matter. You’re not working. But when you get tested, you get challenged, they get in the box and they do damage against you, then you can take something and learn and continue to get better.”

Back in blue and orange

The Mets are bringing another left-handed reliever into camp to compete for a spot in the Opening Day bullpen. The club is closing in on a Minor League deal with Chasen Shreve, according to a source, setting up a reunion with a pitcher who was effective for New York over 17 appearances in 2020. The club has not confirmed the deal.

Last season, Shreve bounced to Pittsburgh, where he posted a 3.20 ERA over 56 games. Over the past two seasons combined, he has held same-sided hitters to a .164 average, tied for sixth-lowest among left-handers who have faced at least 100 lefty batters.

The Mets do not have any lefty relief candidates on their 40-man roster, as manager Buck Showalter considers David Peterson and Thomas Szapucki part of the team’s rotation depth. The only non-roster veterans in camp are Alex Claudio and Mike Montgomery, who will compete with Shreve and others for an Opening Day job.

Earlier Wednesday, lefty reliever Andrew Chafin reportedly signed with the Tigers, making Shreve one of the top arms still available in free agency.

“[General manager] Billy [Eppler has] been on top of that from the get-go,” Showalter said.

Trevor’s not-so-excellent adventure

When reliever Trevor May left his home for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Monday after being unable to find a flight to Florida the previous day, he could not have envisioned the travel nightmare that awaited him. May’s flight was twice delayed due to a smoke detector alarm, but that quickly became the least of his worries. Finally airborne, May’s plane was diverted to Oklahoma City due to weather issues before finally progressing to its original destination, Dallas.

His connection long since missed, May navigated around a line of what he estimated to be 1,000 people searching for new flights. He found a hotel, kept his bags checked and awoke to find that the airline was in the process of sending his luggage to Miami. Eventually, he retrieved his bags before taking a new connecting flight to Fort Lauderdale -- through Detroit. After about an hour in a rental car line in Fort Lauderdale, May began driving north, only to realize that his lodging, which he thought he had booked in Port St. Lucie, was actually about an hour south down I-95.

“It’s still pretty fresh,” May said of his ordeal. “It was tough. It was pretty tough.”

Makeup games

Major League Baseball has rescheduled all of its games from the first week of the season, which was postponed due to the lockout. The Mets will make up their season-opening series against the Nationals with three games at Citi Field to close the year on Oct. 3-5. The other two games, against the Braves, will become part of doubleheaders on May 3 and Aug. 6.