Max Scherzer: Villain?
Monday night, he almost certainly will be the bad guy for Dodger fans. Scherzer, who has compiled 221 career regular season victories, 3,489 strikeouts and three Cy Young Awards over 18 seasons with seven different teams, will be pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 3 of the World Series in The Ravine. The way the Toronto rotation stacks up, Blue Jays manager John Schneider made it clear Scherzer could be the starter in a potential Game 7 in Toronto if the series gets that far.
And, as Schneider noted, “Him pitching in that environment, that’s going to be a lot of hoopla, Game 3. He’s pitched in that stadium. … You feel good about veteran guys in a hostile environment.”
So, he’s the bad guy because he’s the opponent. Check. But is he a villain because of the way his brief Dodgers’ tenure ended in 2021?
Not so fast. It’s complicated.
The background: Andrew Friedman made the biggest move of a frenzied trading deadline (26 separate deals including 17 All-Stars) that season, acquiring Scherzer and Trea Turner from the Washington Nationals for catcher Keibert Ruiz, pitchers Josiah Gray and Gerardo Carrillo and outfielder Donovan Casey — and basically swiping them from division rival San Diego.
The rumor on deadline day was that Padres general manager A.J. Preller was just about to swing a deal with the Nationals for Scherzer, who was a free agent at the end of that season, and Turner, who would be a free agent after the 2022 season. Friedman beat him to it. (There was urgency, in part, because the Dodgers’ ill-advised signing of Trevor Bauer the previous winter blew up in their faces).
Scherzer was 7-0 down the stretch for L.A., though that was the one season of the last 13 in which the Dodgers didn’t win the National League West, finishing one game behind San Francisco. L.A. beat St. Louis in the Wild Card game with Scherzer starting, going 4-1/3 innings and throwing 94 pitches. The Dodgers then knocked off the Giants in the Division Series, though Scherzer lost his Game 3 start – allowing three hits and a run on Evan Longoria’s game-deciding homer while laboring seven innings and 110 pitches.
But that series victory came at a cost.
The Dodger front office’s reputation for overthinking things in the postseason — a little less so now than it was then — was cemented by the way they approached Game 5 of that NLCS in San Francisco. They used Corey Knebel as an opener, Brusdar Graterol in the second inning, Julio Urías for four innings as the bulk guy, followed by Blake Treinen in the seventh, Kenley Jansen in the eighth and Scherzer as the closer three days after he’d started. The plan was said to have been hatched by an anonymous front office functionary; Roberts said afterward that it was a group decision from the “tippy-top” of the Dodgers’ front office on down.
Scherzer pitched a perfect ninth to sew up that series, but then pitched again three days later in NLCS Game 2 against Atlanta, going 4-1/3 innings and throwing 79 pitches and saying afterward he was “spent” and had a “dead arm.” He had pitched 179-1/3 regular season innings, between the Dodgers and Nats, and 16-2/3 more in the playoffs by that point.
Five days later, he was scheduled to start Game 6 in Atlanta, but he said his arm had “locked up” and he was unable to pitch, though he sounded hopeful he could recover and pitch a Game 7 if it got that far. Walker Buehler took the ball that night, but the Braves won that game, won the series and went on to win the World Series.
And many Dodger fans put two and two together and deduced that Scherzer’s impending free agency was a factor in that decision. (The presence of Scott Boras as his agent probably didn’t discourage the conspiracy theories.)
Maybe it really was the reason for such caution. But if you were in Scherzer’s shoes, and it’s your arm and your career, might you not have done the same thing?
And here’s a footnote: The Dodgers’ fooling around with Urías’ usage – using him in relief in Game 2 and bringing him back as a starter in Game 4 – led to a loss of velocity, a shortened outing and a loss in his next start in the Atlanta series.
Perhaps it’s easier not to overthink matters when you have four lights-out starters in the postseason, as the Dodgers do today.
Scherzer, who moved to the Mets in 2022, was traded to Texas at the 2023 deadline and joined the Blue Jays as a free agent last winter, was not asked to address that ancient history in his press conference before Game 2 in Toronto, but he did note, “I’m here to compete. I’m here to win. I wouldn’t be looking backwards at all for any motivation. I have plenty of motivation. I’m here to win and I’ve got a clubhouse full of guys who want to win too. So we’re a great team and that’s the only thing I need to think about.”
There are still people in the Dodgers’ lineup who were Scherzer’s teammates then and who will face him Monday night, including Mookie Betts, Max Muncy, Will Smith and Kiké Hernández. Scherzer did mention former teammate Clayton Kershaw, and in fact after pitching at Dodger Stadium in August (six innings, two earned runs in a 5-1 Dodgers win), he and Kershaw swapped jerseys when the Dodgers and Blue Jays met in L.A. during the season, after Kershaw had joined Scherzer in the 3,000 strikeout club.
“Yeah, Kershaw and I are great,” Scherzer said. “We have a great relationship. But right now it’s two teams, we’re competing, we’re both playing for a ring right now. Obviously I wish him the best. I always think highly of him and everything he’s done in his career and … what he’s meant to the Dodgers. Nothing but respect for everything that he’s done.”
There was this, too, from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts when asked about his memories of managing Scherzer.
“Max, he’s one of one,” Roberts said with a laugh. “Great competitor. Don’t want to touch him during outings, don’t want to pat him on the backside.”
(That description alone helps explain the moment during the recent ALCS against Seattle, when Schneider started toward the mound and Scherzer barked at him, letting the manager know this was his game and he wasn’t coming out.)
Scherzer’s preparation, Roberts said, is “not unique, but it’s very focused. It’s very intentional. He does a lot of his own homework. He’s very prepared. He asks a lot of questions, a lot of it from the hitter’s perspective, which is really smart, and not just kind of going at it from the pitcher’s side. He kind of wants to know what hitters think.”
So yes, this probably will be the baseball equivalent of a chess match when Scherzer and the guys who used to be his teammates size each other up.
“They’re making moves, I’m making moves,” Scherzer said. “That’s just baseball. But it’s been like that for years for me now. I understand how everybody wants to attack me, how I want to attack them. At the end of the day, you got to go out there and compete and you got to throw strikes. It kind of gets back down to the basics.
“So you can try and make it as advanced as you want, but a lot of times it’s the more simple approach that works better.”
In other words, best not to overthink things. (Hint, hint.)
jalexander@scng.com