Max Scherzer’s Historic Sunday
With this past Sunday being the opening day for the NFL season, the sports world was not paying much attention to anything outside of football. Max Scherzer meanwhile pitched one of his greatest games of his career, and in doing so became the 19th player in Major League Baseball history to record 3,000 career strikeouts.
The first 22 Padres hitters were retired in order by Max Scherzer before the first hit of the game was allowed; a one out double by Eric Hosmer in the 8th. Max went 8 innings with 9 strikeouts, the only blemish being the lone hit to Hosmer. In the second inning, Scherzer accomplished a rare feat in baseball history, he threw an immaculate inning. Only the 104th of its kind in the history of the game, Scherzer threw 9 pitches and retired all three hitters faced via the strikeout. This however was not even his greatest accomplishment of the afternoon. Later that game in the 6th inning, on a full count he struck out Eric Hosmer on a slider down in the zone which gave Scherzer 3,000 for his career. Scherzer is second among active pitchers in strikeouts, trailing by just 10 to his former teammate Justin Verlander.
Max Scherzer recorded career strikeout number 3,000 with this 5th inning strikeout against the Padres’ Eric Hosmer.
Scherzer was by far the biggest name traded at this years trade deadline. He boasts one of the greatest resumés among starting pitchers the game has seen. He is an 8 time all star, 4 time wins leader, 3 time strikeout leader, he has had the lowest WHIP 4 times, the highest strikeouts per 9 innings rate 3 times, and the highest strikeouts per walks 4 times. He currently leads all of baseball in ERA, WHIP, and has the lowest hits per 9 innings. For 7 straight years, from 2013 to 2019, he finished in the top 5 for Cy Young Award voting, winning three of them. His first in 2013, then winning back to back awards in 2016 and 2017. He was the ace on the Washington Nationals team that beat the Houston Astros in the World Series in 2019 as well.
Scherzer is no stranger to the history books, in his MLB debut he set a record for the most consecutive batters retired as a reliever when he retired all 13 batters he faced as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. In 2015 he became the fifth pitcher in history to throw two no hitters in the same season. The first game saw him go 8.2 perfect innings before a slider nicked the arm of Pirates Jose Tabata, he settled for a no hitter. He later no hit the Mets on the final game of the regular season. In 2016 he tied the 9 inning record for strikeouts in a game when he recorded 20 strikeouts against his former team the Detroit Tigers. Max Scherzer is the only pitcher in MLB history to have 8 straight seasons of 230 strikeouts or more, which he accomplished from 2012 to 2019, no other pitcher has more than 5 such seasons. Sadly due to the pandemic shortened 2020 season he did not have a chance to continue the streak.
Dodgers’ pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer embracing after Scherzer completed 8 one-hit innings on Sunday.
Scherzer has been beyond what the Dodgers could have hoped for when they traded for him. In his 8 starts with the team he is 6-0 with a 0.88 ERA, allowing only 5 earned runs while also racking up 72 strikeouts. The Dodgers have not lost a game that he has started, which has helped keep them afloat in the race for the NL West division title. His hot stretch with the Dodgers has put him as the favorite to win the Cy Young, this would be the first time a pitcher that was traded during the season won a Cy Young since 1984 when Rick Sutcliffe won the award for the Cubs. This would be his 4th Cy Young Award, only 4 other pitches have won as many. It would also break the tie with current teammate Clayton Kershaw for the lead among active pitchers and give him the most Cy Young wins of anyone from his era. Kershaw has had the title of greatest of his era since he locked up his third Cy Young Award back in 2014, but injuries and age have slowed Kershaw down in recent years. Scherzer has had no signs of slowing down, he still throws as hard on his 100th pitch as he does on his first pitch. The two current teammates now will battle for not just a World Series Championship, but also the title of being the best pitcher of their era.
References
BaseballReference.com
Baseballegg.com
images by Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times