Max Scherzer at His Best, at His Best

The man who threw two no-hitters in a single season just one-upped himself. Max Scherzer was overwhelming on Wednesday night, striking out 20 Detroit Tigers batters without a single walk. It may not have matched the overall brilliance of his 17-strikeout, no-walk, no-hitter against the Mets a little over seven months ago, but this one was every bit as memorable. Although strikeouts have been on the rise for a decade, so too have the limitations on starting pitchers’ workloads, and in an era where aces get shut down in time for the playoffs and others get removed while chasing history, Scherzer went where it was difficult to imagine a man could go again, becoming the fifth pitcher to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning game.

Scherzer did so by descending upon the strike zone with a reckless abandon. He threw an almost unfathomable 96 strikes in 119 pitches, becoming the first pitcher in recorded history to throw as many strikes in fewer than 125 pitches. His 80.7% strike rate ranks fifth since the beginning of the expansion era in games where the starting pitcher threw at least 100 pitches.

You’re in one of two camps with regard to Scherzer’s performance. You’ve read about it, and you wish you’d seen it, or you saw it, and you want to see it again. I was in the former camp, before I joined the latter. Let’s relive the five most dominant sequences from Max Scherzer’s most dominant game.

No. 5

Miguel Cabrera, first inning, strikeout No. 2

This post very nearly was strictly Scherzer vs. Miggy, because this matchup was amazing all night. I thought there might’ve been the case that Scherzer gave Cabrera the worst game of his entire life; it had been nearly a decade since Cabrera struck out at least three times in a game without reaching base or driving in a run, and Scherzer twice made Cabrera look helpless, as you’re about to see now, and as you’ll see again later. It probably wasn’t the worst game Cabrera’s ever had — he wore a golden sombrero back in 2003 — but it’s the smallest Miggy’s looked in a long, long time.

Scherzer starts off the battle with a front-door slider, left a little up, that makes Cabrera turn away from the pitch before it’s called for strike one. Cabrera has one of the best batting eyes the game of baseball has ever seen. He momentarily considered that strike one might hit him. Also, this slider being elevated slightly is the entire reason why this sequence isn’t higher on the list. Seriously.

After backing Miggy up with the front-door slider for strike one, Scherzer goes outside with the heat, changing speeds, eye level, and sides of the plate. It’s 96, and Miggy can’t catch up.

Scherzer climbs the ladder and puts a little extra on his fastball — the broadcast clocked this at 97, but Statcast and PITCHf/x had it at 98. At the time, this was Scherzer’s hardest pitch thrown all season. Cabrera didn’t stand a chance. Nobody stood a chance.

No. 4

James McCann, second inning, strikeout No. 4

Watch the catcher’s glove on this pitch. Watch the catcher’s glove throughout this entire sequence.

My favorite thing about watching Scherzer pitch is the fastball down the middle. Scherzer throws more fastballs down the middle than any pitcher in baseball, and there’s nothing wrong with it. For some pitchers, a fastball down the middle can ruin a start. For Scherzer, the fastball down the middle is integral to his identity as a pitcher.

Consider this: Scherzer’s thrown a league-leading 51 fastballs down the middle this year, and batters have swung 43 times. Of those 43 swings, they’ve whiffed 14 times. 14! That’s twice as many as any other pitcher. One-third of all swings against Scherzer’s fastballs down the middle have resulted in whiffs. Scherzer has gotten more whiffs per swing on his fastball down the middle than all but one pitcher have had on their fastballs outside the zone. When batters have chased a Noah Syndergaard fastball outside the zone, they’ve whiffed 24% of the time this year. When they’ve swung at a Scherzer heater right down the middle, they’ve whiffed 33% of the time. Max Scherzer’s fastball is impossible.

Oh, yeah. The slider’s pretty good, too. Are you still watching the glove?

One of Washington’s television broadcasters said after this pitch — in the second inning — that Scherzer had “that real swing-and-miss stuff tonight.”

No. 3

The entire eighth inning, strikeout Nos. 16, 17, 18

Scherzer had struck out 15 Tigers through seven innings. When Detroit came to bat in the eighth, Scherzer had thrown 75 of 93 pitches for strikes. The Tigers knew what was going on here. Scherzer was going to put the ball over the plate, and they were going to have to try and hit it. There was almost no reason not to swing.

Jose Iglesias took a front-door slider, up-and-in for strike three. Jarrod Saltalamacchia took a front-door changeup for strike three. Ian Kinsler watched 96 at the knees to end the inning. The guy throwing 80% strikes put three pitches over the plate with two strikes in the eighth inning of a two-run game, and he didn’t get a single swing. It’s not just that the Tigers couldn’t put the bat on the ball; it’s that they couldn’t even get ready to.

No. 2

J.D. Martinez, sixth inning, strikeout No. 13

We’re back in the sixth inning, now, but the pattern hasn’t changed. There’s that front-door slider again, establishing the inner half of the plate with the breaking stuff to expand with the hard stuff later in the at-bat.

It’s worth pointing out that Scherzer threw 37 sliders in this game, a career high. Of his 119 pitches, 99 were either fastballs or sliders. He barely needed the changeup, and he completely abandoned the curveball and cutter. At one point during the game, MASN on-field reporter Dan Kolko chimed in with this:

Bob, Max Scherzer made some interesting comments after his last start when he allowed seven earned runs and four home runs against the Cubs. He said it felt like the Cubs hitters knew him better than he knew himself, kind of implying that pitch selection was his problem in that game, not any type of mechanical issues like he dealt with earlier on in the season. He said his goal coming into this start was to be less predictable, maybe to mix things up a little bit more from a pitch selection perspective. And apparently, that goal has worked so far today.

The goal coming into the game was to be less predictable and mix things up a bit from a pitch selection perspective. He ended up throwing a hundred fastballs and sliders.

Similar spot as the slider, except this one gets there in a different way and comes in at 95.

Nobody began elevating their fastball more than Scherzer last season. When he’s not throwing it down the pipe and getting batters to flail away, he’s throwing it like this and getting batters to flail away.

After this pitch, a member of the Tigers broadcast crew remarked, “I think you’d better call your friends and tell them to turn on Tigers baseball.” Max Scherzer had become a spectacle for the opposition.

No. 1

Miguel Cabrera, fourth inning, strikeout No. 9

Scherzer’s last eight outs coming into this at-bat were strikeouts, and he wasn’t planning to stop now. After whiffing Cabrera on three pitches (slider, fastball, fastball) in the first, he flips in a first-pitch curveball (one of five curveballs thrown all night) for strike one, just to remind you that he’s still got it.

Scherzer follows up the curve with a fastball, inside, that starts on the same plane as the curve until it’s 94 and it’s not. This is one of the most uncomfortable looking swings I can ever remember Miguel Cabrera taking.

I know I’m a writer, but sometimes, there just are no words. Any good broadcaster knows that sometimes, you’ve got to just let the moment breathe. You don’t need me to tell you about this pitch. You don’t need me to tell you any more about Max Scherzer. Not after you’ve just seen what he did to Miguel Cabrera.