WASHINGTON -- On Star Wars Day in D.C., Max Scherzer didn’t need any extra help from the force. That’s because he was facing one of his former teams.
On Thursday afternoon against the Diamondbacks, Scherzer tallied 11 K’s over seven innings of two-hit ball -- and went 2-for-3 with an RBI -- to lead the first-place Nationals to a 4-2 win. The victory improved Washington’s record to 19-9, the best mark in the majors. It also served as further proof that the Nats ace gets off on tormenting his former employers.
In five career starts against Arizona, Scherzer is now 4-0 with a 2.65 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP. In 34 innings, he has whiffed 47 batters. As if that weren’t enough, he’s now carrying a .417 lifetime average against the team that originally drafted him.
Not that the D-backs should feel like he’s singling them out.
Last May, in his first and only start against the Tigers since leaving Detroit (the team that acquired him from Arizona in 2010), Scherzer tied a major league record by tallying 20 strikeouts in nine innings. Add it all up, and the two-time Cy Young winner is now 5-0 with a 2.51 ERA against his exes, with a ridiculous K rate of 14 per nine innings. Mad Max much?
“You’d be lying if you said it was just another team,” said skipper Dusty Baker. “You get psyched against your former team. He came out strong and he had that look in his eye. And you could tell by the opening pitch that he wanted to beat the Diamondbacks.”
After the game, Scherzer -- who’s known to be one of the more animated hurlers in the league -- admitted that he gets a little extra amped when he’s matched up against a former employer.
"Oh yeah, of course,” said the 32-year-old righty, who registered double-digit whiffs for the 51st time in his career, second only to Clayton Kershaw among active pitchers. “You wouldn't be human if you didn't. Any time you face your old team, you're going to be excited to go out there and get them. But you have to find something that motivates you every single time. You can't go out there and rely on 'this is a former team and I'm going to take it to them.' You actually have to be motivated to win. Winning is the single greatest motivator of anything there is. Even though you want to win, you want to win against your former teams.”
On Thursday, it wasn’t just his pitching that helped him beat his old mates. In the second inning, Scherzer legged out an infield hit with the bases loaded to give the Nationals a 1-0 lead. It was his 13th RBI since the beginning of the 2016 season, more than any big league pitcher not named Adam Wainwright. Then, in the sixth inning, he smacked a single to right field, giving him his seventh multihit game. In those contests, his teams are a perfect 7-0.
Despite yet another big day for Scherzer against his old squad, not all of his current teammates were buying into the correlation.
“I don’t see it,” said Bryce Harper, who left the game early with groin tightness. “Max is the same guy every single day he pitches. Every single time Maxie goes out there, he wants to compete. He wants to do what he can for our team and anybody he faces, he wants to shove and do the best he can.”
Harper and the Nationals can only hope that Scherzer never ends up pitching against them.
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