Two aces prepare for first career meeting
ARLINGTON — In tearing apart their roster at the trade deadline, the Mets infused an escalating AL West race with another layer of intrigue. Max Scherzer was shipped to a Rangers team then atop the division. Two days later, Justin Verlander rejoined the Astros in a deadline-day deal.
The complementary arcs of two generational pitchers whose careers have intertwined at multiple stops will collide again Wednesday night. Verlander and Scherzer are slated to start for their respective teams in the finale of the most significant Astros-Rangers series in years.
Verlander and Scherzer each own three Cy Young awards and more than 3,300 strikeouts. They have been teammates on two teams and each won World Series elsewhere. This will be the first matchup between them.
“I think it’s exciting,” Verlander said Tuesday. “Not too often in baseball anymore do you get matchups between two guys that have had the career him and I have had. So I think it’s exciting for baseball, it’s exciting for us. I’m sure it’s exciting for him — I hope.”
“This will be fun,” Scherzer told reporters at Globe Life Field. “My whole career … I’ve gotten to face all the best guys in the world, and I’ve gotten to play with all the best guys in the world. I’ve gotten to play with Ver for a while now, as you know, so this going to be fun to actually go up against him.”
Their meeting comes with playoff implications. The Astros lead the AL West by one game over the Mariners entering Wednesday’s game. The Rangers sit two games back after two straight blowout losses in the series.
The matchup also contains plenty of personal history. Scherzer and Verlander were teammates on the Tigers from 2010-14, helping lead Detroit to four postseason appearances in those years. While the two reportedly clashed, Verlander said Tuesday he thinks “some of it got blown out of proportion” and described their early relationship as being between “two highly competitive guys who were trying to find their foothold in the game and … had very strong opinions about the way that they went about their business.
Scherzer signed in free agency with the Nationals before the 2015 season and pitched the next six-plus seasons in Washington. Verlander was traded from the Tigers to the Astros during the 2017 season. He was part of Houston teams that won World Series in 2017 and 2022. Scherzer pitched for the Nationals team that beat the Astros in the 2019 World Series; the two did not oppose each other in that series.
The Mets signed Scherzer before the 2022 season and Verlander last offseason, both to contracts worth $43.33 per year that made them baseball’s highest-paid players by average annual value. After the Mets traded them, reports surfaced of friction between them in New York. Both pitchers downplayed a rift.
“It was good to get back with him,” Scherzer said Tuesday. “He’s obviously one of the great competitors of our time. … The game really changed (while they were apart), so it was good to get back with him, get to know his pitching mind and how he sees the game and how he tries to go and attack hitters.”
Verlander said he agreed “100%” with Scherzer’s recent comments, while back in New York, that the two were “on a better page now” than early in the season.
“I think you’re trying to glean anything you can to understand what makes someone successful and if that can help you in any way, shape or form,” Verlander said. “And sometimes, people who are really successful, especially with somebody that they’ve been competitive against in their career, those people aren’t necessarily willing to share those secrets.”
Their successes are inarguable. Among active pitchers, Verlander ranks first in career wins (254) with Scherzer third (213), while Scherzer is first in career strikeouts (3,361) and Verlander second (3,331).
“They’re different,” said Astros manager Dusty Baker, who also managed Scherzer in Washington. “But they’re similar in their determination. And they’re similar in their competitiveness. They’re both highly competitive.”