LOS ANGELES -- On Sept. 7, 2008, a 24-year-old Max Scherzer and a 20-year-old Clayton Kershaw, both unproven rookies, faced off against each other in a D-backs-Dodgers matchup at Dodger Stadium (you have possibly seen the clip that they were late replacements for Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux that day -- although we have since learned that story isn't 100% true).
Seventeen years later, they took the mound opposite one another again in Friday night's series opener between the Blue Jays and Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. They did so as the first pitchers in Major League history to start against each other as rookies, then go on to each rack up 3,000 career strikeouts, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Both reached the career milestone at Dodger Stadium, Scherzer in 2021 and Kershaw last month.
“You go back to that game, we were competing with each other all the way back then,” Scherzer said after the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-1. “It’s a cool little milestone moment here, where we’re hooking it back up against each other, squaring off each other again.”
"I think it's really cool that Scherz was the guy right before me to get to 3,000," Kershaw said. "I got to play with him, I got to compete against him, basically our whole careers. I think it is really cool that we got to do this in our first year, and I don't know if it's our last year, but toward the end, for sure."
One day, they'll become the third pair of Hall of Famers who opposed each other as rookie starting pitchers, per Elias, and the first since 1890, a year that featured matchups between Kid Nichols and Cy Young, and Nichols and Jesse Burkett (who later became an outfielder).
Baseball may never see a special pitching matchup quite like this again.
“It’s gonna be tough,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said pregame. “Pitchers, I feel like outings are getting shorter and shorter. Until that changes, it’s gonna be tough to rack up the innings, the wins, the strikeouts and the accolades that they both have.”
On Friday night, Scherzer and Kershaw matched each other with six solid innings, with Mookie Betts' go-ahead two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth putting Kershaw in line for the victory. Both Kershaw and Scherzer now have 218 career wins, second only to Justin Verlander's 263 among active pitchers.
Scherzer struck out five and worked around six hits and three walks. Kershaw struck out four and similarly dealt with a lot of traffic, but his defense turned three double plays behind him and limited the damage to one run on seven hits and a walk.
Scherzer said he was amped up for this start, but more so because he knew he would have to execute every pitch against the opponent across from him: the Dodgers lineup. With Kershaw on the mound opposite him, Scherzer knew there would be little to no room for error.
“You knew it was gonna be a battle,” he said. “You knew there’s not gonna be many runs scored, or many runs scored against him. You gotta be absolutely nails.”
And for the most part, Scherzer did execute. He led all pitchers with 11 swings-and-misses (Kershaw had 10), and his velocity was up across all five of his pitches on Friday. Seven of the Dodgers’ whiffs came on Scherzer’s slider, but that also happened to be the pitch that both Ohtani and Betts capitalized on in the bottom of the fifth for a ground-rule double and a two-run go-ahead home run.
Both Kershaw and Scherzer are in their 18th big league season, pitching in meaningful games for first-place teams. Their careers, as well as Verlander's, have been tied together for all that time. Kershaw was quick to point out that Scherzer is "way older" than him -- four years, to be exact -- and Verlander predates them both. But the stuff he saw from Scherzer wasn't showing many signs of age.
"Scherz was throwing the ball great," Kershaw said. "He was throwing like 96 tonight. It doesn't look like he's aged at all."
The respect is mutual.
“He’s had such a great career and getting to be a teammate with him -- he’s an awesome teammate as well,” Scherzer said of Kershaw. “I got all the respect in the world for what he does, on and off the field.”
It marked the fifth matchup between the pair of three-time Cy Young Award winners, who have both defined dominance on the mound in this era of baseball in their own ways.
"I think they're baseball players first," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "I think they see the game a lot better and differently than most people. … I think that they're both intense, but I think that Max is a little bit more demonstrative. In the 'pen, in the game, with the intensity, with his coaches and teammates. I recall not even being able to pat him on the backside in the middle of a game. So that's pretty intense. But Clayton -- he's intense, but it's just not as out there as Max."
Schneider isn’t as familiar with Kershaw, but sees the similarities in how they prepare for and navigate their outings.
“I do know what Max is like before and during the game, and that’s unique into itself,” he said. “But I know from watching both of them on the mound, I would say they’re very similar in how they compete.”
Schneider looked forward to the matchup as a fan of the sport. From how efficient they both were through their outings, to the different ways they each pitch at this point of their careers, Schneider made sure to take it all in.
“It’s fun,” he said. “... When you get two guys with 3,000 strikeouts under their belt, probably a lineup card that I’ll keep in my office.”