TORONTO -- Every adrenaline junkie has a way to get their fix. Some jump out of airplanes, plummeting towards earth until they pull their parachute. Some jump off bridges, a bungee cord strapped around their ankles.
Max Scherzer pitches.
On Monday night, he could feel it waiting for him again. Even in his warmup, the 40-year-old was chasing it. Scherzer kept throwing and throwing, all the urgency of a man trying to squeeze in a complete game before first pitch. It wasn’t just a warmup, it was a one-man stage show, a raging bull waiting for the steel gate to swing open.
When Scherzer liked a pitch, he’d play the umpire, his finger a pistol pointing straight into catcher Alejandro Kirk’s glove or his fist flying back over his right shoulder. When Scherzer didn’t like a pitch, he let every real and imaginary person in the bullpen know it. At times, he was upset with himself, ripping his hand through the air in front of his chest to mime the movement he’d wanted on the pitch. Other times, the arguments were more abstract, both arms jolting out forward, demanding to know why the baseball had just done what it did.
Monday’s 5-4 win over the Yankees gave us a glimpse of the best of Scherzer, the complete package that the Blue Jays have waited so long to see. His only blemish was a two-run home run to Jazz Chisholm Jr., but Scherzer flashed legitimate dominance over five innings with seven strikeouts. The two strikeouts of Aaron Judge were among the biggest moments of the game, the second coming on the 10th pitch of the battle -- a fastball that Scherzer couldn’t have placed better if he’d walked the ball to Kirk’s mitt himself.
“There were a few at-bats in there that are why we all love watching the game,” manager John Schneider said, “like the first two to Judge. [Scherzer] was ready to go. It was evident with the way he warmed up, it was evident with the way he started the game. It was the best version we’ve seen.”
The adrenaline kept Scherzer going, but his right thumb issues kept chasing him. Late in the fifth, he called Kirk to the mound to give himself a moment to breathe, so Schneider and the Blue Jays’ trainer soon followed. Scherzer was flexing his hand and thumb, feeling some of that fatigue creep up into his forearm, which is when this gets dangerous.
Months ago, this may have sounded scarier. Now, though, it sounds like something Scherzer could continue to pitch through and continue to manage, even if that means that some starts are shorter than others. The adrenaline helps, surely, but it’s not about the Yankees. Scherzer’s intensity doesn’t come from the opponent, the hitter in the box or the stage itself, it comes from the competition itself.
“Is this a more intense game? No. It’s the big leagues,” Scherzer said. “I know this is a big game, but I’m not going to sit here and say I didn’t give everything I had against the Guardians [in my return on Wednesday]. I went out there and gave everything I had against them, just like I did today, as well. The opponent is not going to all of the sudden make the thumb hurt worse. I go into every single start as intense as possible ... within reason, I’m not out there crazy. But I’m intense every single time out.”
These are the games the Blue Jays gave Scherzer $15.5 million to pitch in, too.
Scherzer’s thrown 143 innings across 30 postseason games, bringing unrivaled experience to this staff. He’s won two World Series rings, first in 2019 with the Nationals and more recently in ‘23 with the Rangers. Once you’ve tasted those moments -- especially as a pitcher far closer to the end than the beginning -- it has to be so tantalizing to feel it all one more time.
“I always want to play against the best. If you’re going to win it all, you’ve got to beat the best,” Scherzer said. “You’ve got to go out there against everybody in the league and go at them with everything you’ve got. This was an opportunity for us to do that.”
Another big test awaits Tuesday morning, when Scherzer wakes up and flexes his thumb for the first time. He’s not out of the woods yet, but we’ve finally seen how good this can be and Blue Jays fans have finally felt a small speck of that feeling Scherzer keeps chasing.