Mad Max: K’s for Days
Last night, Max Scherzer dazzled in yet another impressive start.
The Washington Nationals ace affectionately refereed to as “Mad Max” recorded his 150th career win on Wednesday night. He did so in another of a long line of stellar performances. Facing the Baltimore Orioles, he pitched 8 shutout innings, recording 12 punch outs and allowing just 2 hits with one walk. And let’s not kid ourselves, the O’s have their struggles but they still have some dangerous bats in that lineup. However, they were not dangerous enough for the reigning back-to-back Cy Young winner.
This win turns out to be even more meaningful than that 150 career win benchmark for Mad Max. This was his MLB best 9th win of the season, 8th double-digit strikeout game of the year, and (perhaps most importantly) the Nats are now atop the NL East for the first time since April 3rd . Scherzer has 120 Strikeouts on the year, and its not even June yet (yeah, I guess that’s pretty good).
I would normally say something like “Scherzer seems to be really finding his stride here”. But let’s be serious, this man is more of a monster, and he’s maintained his dominance without missing a beat. In 2018, the 3-time Cy Young winner is sporting a 1.92 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, .171 Opp BA, and a staggering 13.6 k/9- of which leads the Majors. These numbers are all well ahead of where he was in 2016 and 2017 (both of which he won the Cy Young). He’s less human and more a golden pitching god with two different colored eyes and a flamethrower of an arm.
Scherzer is on pace for a 3rd consecutive Cy Young. He casually racks up more K’s in just about every start than many pitchers have on record as their career best for K’s in a game. Popular opinion is Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher of our generation- and I proudly disagree. Exhibit A? Mad Max.
