The last month-and-a-half has felt mighty long for Max Scherzer. And if you ask the veteran right-hander what it’s like to spend all that time on the IL, rehabbing nagging injuries, his answer is quick and to the point: “It stinks.”
But on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT, Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet+), Scherzer is back in action with the Blue Jays in the series finale against the Philadelphia Phillies. He takes the mound for his sixth start of the season, looking to lead Toronto to a second straight win and a game below .500, a mark last year’s World Series finalists have hit this season, but only briefly.
“I just want to get back out here and be part of the team,” Scherzer says, standing in the Blue Jays clubhouse on a recent afternoon, not long after his two oldest kids ran off in search of drinks and snacks. “I want to go out there and provide some energy for the boys, go out there and try to win.”
Manager John Schneider is also happy to welcome back his most veteran arm, a player who also carries an unmistakeable presence. “Max raises the level of awareness when he’s on the mound and, you know, he’s very engaged with what he’s doing,” Schneider says. “He kind of keeps everybody on edge a little bit, just with the way he goes about his game.”
Scherzer heads into his start— a day after Dylan Cease rejoined the rotation and struck out 11 over six innings — in search of Toronto’s 34th win of the season and the 223rd of his career. He’s also just one strikeout away from the incredible 3,500-mark for his career, and 10 Ks short of moving into the all-time top 10 in that category. Justin Verlander, who has 3,554 punchouts across his 21 seasons, is the lone active pitcher ahead of Scherzer on the list.
Fellow Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman argues this is history that won’t be replicated: “To be that good for that long is really something that I don’t think you’re ever going to see again, to be honest,” Gausman says. “I think him and Verlander are going to be the last 3,500-strikeout guys. I just don’t see anyone playing that long with that level of success.”
Watching Scherzer in his 19th season, the MLB’s second-oldest active player (behind only Verlander) is something Gausman, who’s 35, appreciates more now that he’s older. Though the idea that 41-year-old “Max Max” from Missouri could provide a template for how to pitch into your 40s in the major leagues is completely outlandish in Gausman’s mind after watching firsthand how Scherzer operates.
“Some of the stuff he does, I would fall apart after one month doing that — like, he’s an absolute animal,” Gausman says.
Gausman points out that while Scherzer is full of information about how he’s managed to pitch at the highest level for so long, he’s not just an “absolute” but “a different animal,” too.
“He has one speed and one gear … and his foot on the gas. He beats himself up all the time, but that’s what he’s always done,” says Gausman.
While some aspects of Scherzer’s routine have changed over the years — “I’m older and I definitely feel some aches and pains more,” he says — the two-time World Series champion, three-time Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer notes that, “on the other hand, I really haven’t changed much.
“I’m able to still do my same kind of program. I can still do a lot of things that I was doing 10 years ago. There’s a lot of times my body feels great, where I can really be out there running around and feel young. So, for me it’s a mentality — and any time my body feels good, I’m out there working and training to get ready.”
Scherzer’s has given up two or fewer earned runs in three of his starts this year, but he allowed eight in another, and seven in his most recent. That was on April 24 when he left the game due to right arm tendinitis after just two innings. He’s sporting a career-high 9.64 ERA, and no doubt looking to improve that as he makes his return, hunting for his second win of the season.
“Physically, when he’s in a good spot and feels good and his stuff is where it should be, you take Max competing against anyone,” Schneider says of Scherzer, whose fastball averaged 93.4 m.p.h. in his last rehab outing for triple-A Buffalo and topped out at 95.7. “I said it when we signed him again in spring, it’s kind of like we want the version that we saw in the post-season where you can navigate a lineup, you can get through 85, 95, 100 pitches and keep yourself in the game. So, we feel like he’s in a physical spot to do that, and when he’s executing, he’s pretty good.”
While it’s clear to anyone who’s seen Scherzer pitch that he’s the definition of high intensity, he won’t hit “game mode,” as he puts it, until late Wednesday afternoon.
“When I come in, I’m talking to everybody — like, I’m normal,” Scherzer says of game days.
From there, things proceed roughly as they have since he made his MLB debut nearly 20 years ago in Arizona. About three-and-a-half hours before first pitch, he’ll crush a couple of chicken sandwiches (a change from roast beef, his go-to for years) and get going on his homework, “crash-coursing into what I’ve got, what the reports are going to be and how we’re going to develop a plan to go out there and pitch,” he explains.
He’s happy to report he’s become less superstitious on game days. Years ago — he can’t remember where he was pitching at the time — he put shorts on under his baseball pants for an extra layer in cold weather. “I was on a nice little streak [of no earned runs allowed] and I looked down and I actually had my shorts on backwards, so I had to keep wearing backwards shorts under my pants,” he explains. “Finally gave up a run and I was like, ‘Alright, time to put the shorts on right.’”
Nowadays the shorts are gone, but other parts of the routine are still set in stone. At around 5:30 p.m., about an hour-and-a-half before first pitch, Scherzer’s headphones go on, the music starts (usually rap) and he’s done talking to teammates, who know to leave him be.
That same silence is maintained while he’s pitching, save for one topic. “Anything that has to do with defence, pitching, getting somebody out — yeah, we can talk, I’m fine,” he says. “I am not talking about anything else.”
As soon as he’s out of the game, “I’ll flip the switch off,” Scherzer says. “But when I have that switch on, there’s only one thing on my mind.”
That mind of Scherzer’s is part of what makes him “one of one,” as Gausman puts it.
Scherzer is the only teammate Gausman’s ever had who travels with a keyboard, an addition last season after Scherzer discovered the fine motor skills required to play the piano helped with an issue he had with his right thumb. “He’s pretty good now, I’ll give it to him,” Gausman says of his buddy’s musical abilities. “I will say when he first started, he wasn’t great,” Gausman adds with a laugh. “Last season, I think we might have been in Detroit and I was starting and he was playing and I could hear it, and I was just like: ‘Man, this is tough to listen to before a game, you know?’”
It’s one example of what Gausman calls “a really adept ability to understand what his body needs, and then he’ll go and train that specifically — he understands his entire body.
“If he was sitting here and his knee’s hurting, if you were like, ‘Oh, is it your meniscus?’ He’d be like, ‘No it’s actually this strand, it connects to here,’” Gausman says, pointing to a precise location on his knee, like Scherzer would. “He’s like that with everything. You talk about his shoulder, and he’s like ‘It’s not the elbow, it’s the infraspinatus.’
“But that’s just him, man. He’s the best,” Gausman says. “Like, he really is.”
While Scherzer and much of what he does to prepare and maintain his body are unique, there’s one aspect of his routine that many teammates have adopted.
“He throws his bullpen in full get-up, full game uni — belt, everything,” says Gausman, who’s in his fifth season in Toronto. “Before he got here, it was, you can just wear whatever shirt, guys wouldn’t want a belt.
“And I think it’s just his level of professionalism when it comes to focusing on that day off like, ‘I’m treating this like a start.’ So, we’ve definitely taken that from him. Everybody does that now, across the board.”
That’s a lead-by-example sample, but when asked what advice he’d give younger pitchers to ensure they’ll have long careers, Scherzer says “it’s a multitude” and “a whole other conversation,” before diving into that very conversation.
“You’ve got to stay athletic,” he starts off, pointing out he played pickup basketball every off-season until he was about 39. Basketball’s out now, after surgery to repair a herniated disc, but biking, running and swimming, among other sports, are still in. (Gausman’s and Scherzer’s families went on vacation together in the off-season and Gausman says Scherzer “swam all day, every day — and it wasn’t like he was just going back and forth. He’s always doing something. He’s like, ‘I can feel I was a little tight right here, and now I’m not.’”)
“If you train to be athletic, you’ll be able to absorb the stress of the mound better,” Scherzer continues. “Combining with everything else — you’ve got to study mechanics, you’ve got to really study yourself and study the mechanics of great pitchers as well. You’ve got to be durable. I mean, it doesn’t matter how hard you throw if you’re going to be blown out.
“There’s a kind of mantra in the game right now that everybody’s going to blow out. ‘Everybody blows, right? Everybody blows out.’ I hate that. I’m still standing here saying like, ‘No, I don’t have any surgeries on my arm.’ It’s a stupid kind of thought process within the game. So, you’ve got to be durable. That’s got to be your No. 1 goal, not talent. Like, be durable. And so, I’d say those two things, be durable and be athletic.”
He’s not done, though. “This also goes for kids, too,” the father of four adds. “We’ve got a five-year-old who’s about to get in Little League and you kind of hear the horror stories that come through and, you know, how young they try to specialize in baseball, and it just makes me want to pull my hair out.
“Like, no. Play as many sports as possible. You want to be as good an athlete as possible. When you’re 16 years old, yeah, we can talk about what’s your specialty. But be an athlete first.”
That’s it on that topic, for now, because Mad Max has to get back to leading by example.
Forty-seven days after his last start, Scherzer will make his 23rd for the Blue Jays. It’s one he’s been looking forward to.
“Oh, so much,” Scherzer says. “It’s too much fun pitching in the big leagues, and I can’t wait to get out there.”