Reviewing Max Scherzer’s Baserunners

An offseason ago, the Nationals made a commitment to Max Scherzer worth $210 million. Scherzer subsequently reduced his OPS allowed by an incredible 63 points. Now, in fairness, these are the five best OPS-allowed figures by qualified pitchers in the last 15 years:

• 2015 Jake Arrieta, .507
• 2015 Zack Greinke, .507
• 2015 Clayton Kershaw, .521
• 2014 Clayton Kershaw, .521
• 2013 Clayton Kershaw, .521

The feeling is that Kershaw is about to finish a distant third for the Cy Young. That despite having one of the all-time best seasons, his third such season in a row. As so often happens, a post about a different pitcher being amazing has to carve out space to acknowledge that Clayton Kershaw is more amazing. It’s incredible that Kershaw presumably won’t win the Cy Young, but it’s only a little less incredible that Scherzer won’t get a single first-place vote. Or, I imagine, a single second-place vote. Scherzer just finished a year in which he was worth every penny, and it was a year that saw him throw a couple of no-hitters. That’s twice as many no-hitters as one no-hitter, and one no-hitter qualifies as a historic career achievement.

The second no-hitter came in a sleepy game that didn’t otherwise serve much of a purpose. The season-ending series between the Nationals and the Mets was supposed to matter, but instead the Mets coasted along, while the Nationals played out their final innings under Matt Williams. On Saturday, Scherzer opposed Matt Harvey. What eyes were present were mostly fixed on Harvey, searching for any signs of fatigue, but it was Scherzer who ultimately stole the show. There were no hits, and there were 17 strikeouts.

Including, at one point, nine in a row. Scherzer’s whole third time through the order was nothing but swinging strikeouts, and then that left only an infield pop-up to bring the effort to an end. Scherzer finished with a game score of 104, which is the second-highest of all time given an outing of nine innings or less. They say Scherzer is the sixth pitcher in baseball history to throw two no-hitters in the same season (including a Roy Halladay game in the playoffs). Scherzer also finished with three complete games with no more than two baserunners. During the regular season, no other pitcher has done that save for Pete Alexander, who had four such games in 1915. So that’s a related but different sort of history, taking Scherzer back a hundred years.

Boy, do you ever want to be greedy, though. Scherzer finished with two no-hitters. There’s no sense in wanting him to have done more than that. That’s already an almost unparalleled achievement. Yet he came ever so close to doing even better. Let’s put it this way: the Nationals just wrapped up a season of should’ve-beens and could’ve-beens. A season full of what-ifs. Why not apply that to their best starting pitcher? We know how Scherzer made history. He nearly made more.

Scherzer’s first no-hitter came on June 20, but what some have forgotten is that the start before, Scherzer took a perfect game into the seventh. He wound up with a complete-game shutout, with one hit, one walk, and 16 strikeouts. Here is that one hit, leading off the bottom of the seventh:

The pitch was a good one. Even the initial result was a good one. It was just the final result that was worse, Carlos Gomez turning a jam-shot blooper into a single just barely beyond the glove of Anthony Rendon:

That was the Brewers’ one knock. In the eighth, Scooter Gennett worked a nine-pitch walk, so Scherzer wasn’t one lousy bloop from a perfect game, but it was by this margin that Scherzer missed throwing three no-hitters in a year. And two in a row.

Two things that need to be said: this does nothing to address any good luck Scherzer experienced, and also, we can never know how things would’ve played out along alternate timelines. If that ball is caught, maybe Scherzer gives up a bunch of hits all of a sudden. If he gets that no-hitter, maybe he doesn’t throw a no-hitter in the next start. There’s nothing to be done about this; it just is the way it is. But what is fact is that Max Scherzer threw a one-hitter, and the one hit was literally an inch or three away from being snared.

Man, is that ever not all, though. Move ahead to June 20. In case you’ve forgotten this game, it was the Jose Tabata game. The Jose Tabata hit-by-pitch game. Scherzer no-hit the Pirates, but he was throwing a perfect game through eight and two-thirds. With two strikes on Tabata, Scherzer came inside:

It should all be rushing back for you now. A screenshot:

From Baseball Savant, here are Scherzer’s career hit batters against righties, with Tabata circled:

And here are the times Tabata has been hit:

It was something of an exceptional hit-by-pitch, and it looked like Tabata dropped his elbow into the path. After the fact, some people criticized Tabata and others said he was just doing what came naturally to him, maybe as a part of his swing, but that could’ve conceivably been ruled differently. If it was determined that Tabata didn’t make sufficient effort to avoid the pitch, then it would’ve just been a ball, instead of a base. The rule’s almost never called like that, but it does exist, and then maybe Scherzer would’ve gotten him seconds later. Or! Maybe Scherzer would’ve yielded a walk. Or a single. Or a home run! Don’t know. But in Scherzer’s first no-hitter, there was one baserunner, and that one baserunner reached on a play that, by the rules, could’ve been called otherwise. A perfect game near-miss.

Also, the Tabata plate appearance featured this:

Nearly a strikeout, and also nearly a routine soft grounder to first. Even before all the controversy, Tabata almost made the last out. Everything in baseball comes down to a matter of millimeters, in a certain sense; this was no different.

Almost a third no-hitter. Almost a first perfect game. And then Saturday. Saturday, you could say Scherzer did his part to retire 28 batters. The line shows 28 at-bats, with no hits, no walks, and no hit batters. Scherzer was perfect through five, and then Yunel Escobar just had to convert a routine fielding attempt.

If anything, the most difficult part of the play should’ve been the back-hand. Escobar had all the time in the world to get set and throw, and maybe that was exactly the problem. This is a throw he makes 99 times out of 100, but for whatever reason, this one bounced, and Clint Robinson couldn’t manage to pick it. So the Mets got a runner on first, and the runner never advanced past first, and future potential runners saw their dreams systematically shattered. Soon thereafter, the strikeouts resumed, and Scherzer almost never let up. For all intents and purposes, he did enough to retire 28 bats in a row. He had to settle for something relatively few pitchers have ever done.

It’s greed. It’s pure greed. It’s ugly to think this way, utterly unhelpful to think this way, but still, you think about how close we came to a season you could never dream of. We’ve already come to terms with the fact that Max Scherzer somehow threw two no-hitters in a year. But he ever so barely missed three no-hitters, two of which could’ve been perfect. One culprit was a blooper. Another was a questionable elbow. The last was an error on a routine play. Scherzer certainly got a little lucky to pull off even what he did. But I guess you could say there’s still, inconceivably, room for improvement.