Max Scherzer took his start on Wednesday into the 8th inning without allowing a hit. Has the Washington Nationals starter become the most dominant starter in baseball?
On Wednesday, Scherzer faced the Marlins and Dan Straily. He came out against what has been a very explosive Miami offense (not a single 0-run performance in June, averaging 6.5 runs per game over their last 10 games coming into today).
Scherzer walked Christian Yelich in the first inning. After that, no other hitter reached first base via walk, hit, or error until the 8th inning, leading to cell phone notifications everywhere going off to highlight a possible no-hitter after 7 innings.
In the 8th inning, Scherzer opened the inning by striking out Derek Dietrich. Scherzer then tried to make a defensive play and likely ended up costing himself the no-hitter in the process, deflecting a ground ball up the middle that was ruled a hit by A.J. Ellis.
Ellis was replaced by pinch runner Jose Urena, who was sacrificed to second base by JT Riddle. J.T. Realmuto pinch hit for the Marlins pitcher and reached first base on an error, putting runners on the corners with two outs.
After Dee Gordon was hit by a pitch, Scherzer uncorked a wild pitch while Giancarlo Stanton was hitting, allowing Urena to score and tie the game, along with moving up the other runners to 2nd and 3rd. Stanton followed with a clean single to drive in a run, and the Nationals were out of the inning when Gordon was thrown out attempting to score on the play from second base.
The Nationals were unable to score in the top of the inning, which left Scherzer as the hard-luck loser with 2 unearned runs and a complete game pitched, allowing just 2 hits and a walk.
Historical
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
I was curious where Scherzer ranked as far as his dominance all time after this start. Sure,
Nolan Ryanholds the record for no-hitters with 7, and Scherzer has two, so he has a ways to go for that, but Ryan frequently would walk a number of hitters as he pursued his no-hitters. Only
Sandy Koufaxand
Bob Fellerhad more than 2, but 28 total pitchers have more than one no-hitter in his career, so Scherzer is in good company in that respect historically.
Rather than just looking at pure hits allowed, Scherzer is actually a guy who strongly threatens throwing a perfect game very frequently, completely dominating a team by allowing no base runners at all.
As a measure, I took Baseball Reference’s Play Index and looked up pitchers who had thrown 7 or more innings while allowing 2 or less walks and 2 or less hits and also striking out 10 or more hitters. I figured that’d give me an idea of who is really dominating hitters.
The all-time leader in such starts is Pedro Martinez, with 12. Randy Johnson is right behind him with 11. With today’s start reaching those qualifications, Scherzer now has 9 such starts in his career. That ties him with Nolan Ryan for the third-most such starts in the history of the game.
For reference, Clayton Kershaw has 8 (as did Sandy Koufax, Curt Schilling, and Roger Clemens). That’s correct, Scherzer has had more of these dominating starts in his career than even Kershaw!
There’s also this from Twitter:
Not to be lost in all this: Max Scherzer has taken a no-hitter into the 6th in 13.4 percent of his starts as a National. Which is insane.
— Dan Kolko (@masnKolko) June 21, 2017
Next: MLB Full Draft Recap and Review
This game came nearly 2 years to the day after he missed a perfect game by a single pitch, hitting the Pirates’ Jose Tabata with a pitch with two outs in the 9th inning. I was at that game with my wife on our honeymoon, and the excitement of the game was palpable. Here’s video of that final moment: