Lost in the midst of the Nats’ disappointing loss to the Indians was another solid outing from Max Scherzer. He took a no hitter into the seventh inning and ended up allowing only three hits and one run over seven innings, leaving with a loss as the lineup failed to provide any semblance of run support. Scherzer was on the cusp of a transcendent outing and though it may not feel like, that has been the norm this season.
It certainly has been a weird season for Scherzer, though. He’s allowed a homerun in 16 of his 24 starts this season. He’s giving up homeruns at the highest rate of his career, 1.38 homeruns per nine innings pitched to be exact. It has been enough of a homerun barrage that over the course of the season people have theorized there are mechanical issues with Scherzer, or he’s lost control of his fastball or maybe it’s the result of an injury?
On the other hand, Scherzer came into Tuesday night’s game sporting a 2.87 ERA. His 10 strikeouts against the Indians gave him the league lead in that category among starting pitchers. He eclipsed 200 strikeouts on the season for the fifth straight season, joining four other active pitchers to have achieved the same feat: Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander. His strikeout rate is up to 32.5% on the year, the highest of his career. A ten strikeout performance like Tuesday night is now the expectation from Scherzer.
On the one hand, Max has been eminently hittable, serving up dinger after dinger to opposing batters in a majority of his outings. On the other hand, Scherzer has been entirely unhittable, holding opposing batters to a .188 batting average coming into the game against the Indians. How does that even make sense? How can one pitcher be so dominant and so homer prone at the same time?
Part of it has to do with Scherzer’s approach. He knows his pitches are all effective, across the board, and he pitches like it. He attacks the zone and challenges hitters to do something with it because, more often than not, they can’t. Opposing batters have a hard time even making contact with pitches in the zone from Scherzer, swinging and missing at his in zone offerings 6.7% of the time. That’s the second highest rate among starting pitchers, behind only Danny Duffy of the Royals, and more in line with relievers with one power pitch, relievers like Kenley Jansen and his cutter. Of course, there is a downside to living in the zone so much. Major League hitters are very talented and even against a pitcher as good as Scherzer will still run into a pitch on a regular basis, as Scherzer has discovered this year.
Scherzer isn’t the only pitcher to be struggling with the long ball this season, though. Home runs are up across the league, approaching power numbers reminiscent of the days of the PED era. Scherzer has been victimized by the long ball along with the rest of the league. There is no obvious reason as to why home runs have spiked, but not for lack of theorizing. It’s unlikely it’s due to PED use, as there is a clear start to the spike in the second half of the 2015 season. So unless the entire league started juicing at the same time, it’s not steroids. It’s not the result of an influx of new young talent like Carlos Correa and Bryce Harper, as exit velocities on all types of batted balls are up for all types of players. The one possibility that remains is a change to the baseball, a theory starting to gain some traction. Whatever the cause, Scherzer’s home run struggles are not entirely unique to Max.
The stories on the 2016 Nationals abound. Stephen Strasburg has stolen much of the spotlight in 2016 as he continues his breakout from the end of last season. The Nationals have built a sizable lead in the NL East. Bryce Harper is mired in the midst of a nearly season-long slump. When the narrative does turn to Scherzer, it’s usually to focus on those struggles in limiting home runs. The stories to distract from Max Scherzer’s brilliance are numerous, but don’t keep that from appreciating what he’s doing yet again. Scherzer is putting up one of the best pitching seasons in baseball.
Tags: Max Scherzer, Nationals, Nats, Washington Nationals
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