Scherzer is nearly perfect
Pitcher gets 3,000th career strikeout in 8 innings of 1-hit ball
LOS ANGELES >> The day belonged to Max Scherzer.
Utterly dominating the San Diego Padres, Scherzer recorded his 3,000th career strikeout, pitched an “immaculate inning” and took a perfect game into the eighth inning as the Dodgers beat the Padres 8-0 Sunday afternoon.
“Obviously you see him from afar, dominating,” Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts said of Scherzer. “You face him a couple of times. he goes seven eight innings every single time. But just to be playing behind him is so much more fun. I mean it’s just kind of amazing to watch greatness.”
Eric Hosmer, Scherzer’s 3000th strikeout victim, was the Padres’ only baserunner in the game. He dropped a one-out double into the right field corner in the eighth inning, ending a run of 22 consecutive batters retired by Scherzer.
It was not the closest Scherzer has come to pitching the 24th perfect game in baseball history. In June 2015, he was within a strike of completing a perfect game when he hit a batter, settling for the first of his two career no-hitters.
“It was the fifth or sixth inning probably when I realized I had something going there,” Scherzer
said. “You turn through the lineup once, you got something going. You turn through the lineup twice you got a shot. So once I was able to get through six I knew, ‘OK, I got a shot to do this.’”
Scherzer has raised the bar impossibly high for future trade-deadline acquisitions. The Dodgers are undefeated in Scherzer’s eight starts for them since he was acquired from the Washington Nationals at the deadline.
Personally, Scherzer is 6-0 with a 0.88 ERA (five earned runs in 51 innings) as a Dodger, barging to the front of the National League Cy Young Award race. He has given up just one unearned run in his past 29 2/3 innings, striking out 41 and allowing just 12 hits in that time.
“We’ve had some good runs from starting pitchers,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s hard for me to pick any other eight-start run. But I just can’t imagine any being any better than this, especially with where we’re at in the season.”
Scherzer announced his presence with authority Sunday, striking out five of the first seven Padres batters to reach the brink of 3,000. He struck out the side in the second inning on nine pitches — three foul balls, six swings-and-misses. It was the third time in his career that Scherzer has pitched an “immaculate inning,” tying Chris Sale and Sandy Koufax for the most since pitch counts have been tracked.
His milestone strikeout came in the fifth inning when Hosmer swung and missed at a filthy changeup, down and in.
The crowd responded with a roar and a standing ovation, Scherzer tipping his cap on the mound before going back to business.
Scherzer is the 19th pitcher in baseball history to strike out 3,000 batters, the seventh to add it to a collection of three or more Cy Young awards and the first to reach 3,000 while wearing a Dodgers uniform.
“It’s hard to describe the emotions of it,” Scherzer said. “It’s an awesome achievement, awesome milestone. Not that many people have reached this milestone. It’s an awesome thing to accomplish. I love strikeouts and to me this is a testament to durability to me going out there every single time, making my 30-plus starts a year, year in, year out. Everybody can have the ability to do this. But few have the durability to do this.”
The closest the Padres came to a hit during the first seven innings was probably Fernando Tatis Jr.’s fly out to straightaway center field to start the fifth inning. Cody Bellinger ran that drive down on the warning track, 390 feet away from home plate.
Other than that, the Dodgers’ fielders were challenged more by the sun in a cloudless sky than anything the Padres batters did -- 10 of the 16 balls they put in play against Scherzer were outs recorded in the air.
“That sun was tough today,” Betts said. “It was a pretty big sun. I know that sounds weird but it was just — a ball could get in it pretty easily so you just really had to work to get it out of there. It was a tough time for everyone so no excuses.”
Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ offense remained in its three-week (or more) funk for most of the day. Solo home runs by Corey Seager in the fourth and Mookie Betts in the fifth were two of just four hits the Dodgers had in the first six innings Sunday.
Those came off Padres relievers. Starting pitcher Blake Snell (who took a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Angels
Max Scherzer delivers the pitch that gave him 3,000career strikeouts when the Padres’ Eric Hosmer swung and missed.
in his previous start) lasted just 11 pitches, leaving in the first inning with an apparent injury.
Snell delivered a 1-and-1 pitch to Trea Turner with two outs in the first inning, missing with a slider, and then immediately headed for the dugout in obvious discomfort. The Padres’ official announcement was that Snell had left the game with left adductor tightness.
The Dodgers broke the game open with a four-run seventh inning extended when Padres right fielder Wil Myers lost Betts’ catchable fly ball in the sun. It fell in for a hit and three batters later Justin Turner took advantage, sending a three-run home run into the left field pavilion.
That half-inning (featuring seven batters and a pitching change) lasted over 20 minutes, the longest Scherzer had to wait between pitches during the game. Hosmer’s double followed two batters later on a 2-and-1 changeup.
“I knew Hosmer was gonna be tough,” Scherzer said. “I got to an 0-1 count with a curveball but then I didn’t execute that 1-1 fastball, fell behind. I was kind of in between pitches at that point. I didn’t know what was going to work in a 2-1 count against him. I thought about the changeup. I needed to get it down and I did. Unfortunately I pulled it in, and he was able to get the barrel to it and get a base hit on it.”