TORONTO – A year after starting Game 7 of the World Series, Max Scherzer’s competitiveness remains as high as ever, but six starts into his second season with the Toronto Blue Jays, the results just haven’t been there.
Pitching at the MLB level for the first time since April, Scherzer reached a historic milestone Wednesday while also allowing five runs in a game the Blue Jays lost 7-4. With the loss, they fall to 33-36 on the season with a list of questions that now includes how to get better results from Scherzer ahead of his next scheduled appearance at Fenway Park.
"You want to try to see what it looks like when he gets some consistent work," manager John Schneider said. "I think he's earned that. It's the reason why we signed him back. You don't want to make any knee-jerk reactions."
In the first inning, Scherzer made some history by retiring former teammate Kyle Schwarber for the 3,500th strikeout of his career. It was one of four strikeouts for Scherzer, who allowed five hits, including two home runs, while walking two.
Only 10 pitchers in MLB history have more strikeouts than Scherzer: nine Hall of Famers and Justin Verlander, who will one day be enshrined in Cooperstown alongside Scherzer and the others. Anyone who approaches that plateau must have a combination of brilliance and durability – and Scherzer has offered his share of both over the course of 19 MLB seasons.
Asked about the significance of the milestone, Scherzer said he intends to celebrate Friday. Late Wednesday evening, he was still feeling the sting of the loss.
“I came here to win today,” he said. “I’m not pitching for milestones. I'm pitching to win the whole thing. So it’s great to get the milestones … but I think at a different point in time I'll celebrate more.”
As for the rest of the start, Scherzer acknowledged the frustrating results while giving the Phillies credit for wearing him down.
“But from the physical side, I'm actually very encouraged where I'm at."
The 41-year-old said all of his pitches felt good and his body responded well to the challenge of returning from the injured list. Now it’s a matter of making sure he’s executing his pitches as often as possible in his next outing.
“I’ll go back to the drawing board (and) figure out what I want to do differently,” he said.
The question for the Blue Jays now is: what can he offer from here? Because as much as they’ve been longing for times like this with a full rotation full of established starters, that only matters when the likes of Scherzer and Patrick Corbin can keep runs off the board and haul innings.
Granted, there were some positives Wednesday. The Phillies swung and missed at Scherzer's pitches 13 times, matching the total of Phillies starter Jesus Luzardo, who struck out eight. And Scherzer's fastball sat 93.6 m.p.h., topping out at 95.3 – about where he should be.
"They're a good team and they wore him down," Schneider said. "I thought he made some really good pitches and some really close pitches and gave us what he had."
But ultimately it comes down to results, and the Phillies made hard contact against Scherzer, including home runs by Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm. For the season, the right-hander’s ERA is 10.23.
“We just want him to be productive and give us some quality innings,” Schneider said. “He's very capable of doing it.”
Also relevant to this conversation is Shane Bieber, who’s scheduled to make a rehab start with triple-A Buffalo on Thursday. In a scenario where that start goes very well, Bieber could be a consideration for the big-league rotation as soon as next week.
At this point, it’s simply too soon to say what’s next for Bieber and how that impacts Scherzer and the rest of the MLB rotation.
The early exit for Scherzer led to a busy night for the bullpen with six relievers covering 5.2 innings. Ahead of an off day, that's not a problem for the Blue Jays. But moving forward, they do need some length from Scherzer.
“Hopefully next time out, I'm even better,” the right-hander said. “And taking another stride forward.”
Facing the talented but unpredictable Luzardo, the Blue Jays pushed without breaking through. They walked four times, taking advantage of the lefty’s volatile command, but the only big hit they came up with was a Brandon Valenzuela RBI single.
As Schneider said, “he's got really good stuff.”
Later, the Blue Jays scored three in the seventh thanks to a bases-loaded walk from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and sacrifice flies from Ernie Clement and Kazuma Okamoto.
After a day off Thursday, the Blue Jays welcome the Yankees to Toronto for the first time this year. Ideally, this would be a chance for two of the league’s elite teams to face off for top spot in the AL East. But first things first. Now 9.0 games behind the Yankees and three games below .500, the Blue Jays need to hold on in the wild-card race before they worry about much else.
“Everybody just wants to play better,” Scherzer said. “I think everybody can look at themselves in the mirror (and try) to do a little bit more.”
