And when issues started piling up — the dead arm that rendered him unable to start Game 6 of the 2021 National League Championship Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the oblique injuries that interrupted his brief tenure with the New York Mets, the shoulder injury that cost him the end of the regular season for the Texas Rangers last year — he reflected on each as a stroke of luck, as “could have been worse,” as problems delaying his return, never putting it in jeopardy entirely. Fragility was always there, something to be navigated, never feared.
But that fragility has never been so close to catching Scherzer than it was on the mound at a Class AAA ballpark in suburban Austin on a steamy Saturday night in June. That night, Scherzer was trying to prove — to the Rangers, to General Manager Chris Young and maybe even a little bit to himself — that he can be counted on as a stalwart in a contending team’s rotation again.
Scherzer has made just eight regular season starts and three postseason appearances for the Rangers, with whom he is under contract through the end of this season. He has no real ties to the Class AAA Round Rock Express, and the team’s fans have little big league history with him. Kids climb the fences around the bullpen because they know his name, if not his prime. Their parents reach over with phones outstretched because they saw him when he was untouchable, so they are grateful to see him up close now.
But this organization, like the Mets, like the Dodgers, has not known Scherzer at his best. He is here as a dedicated mercenary, as someone who still somehow has something to prove.
Scherzer pitched in the World Series for the Rangers, sure, but only just. He left Game 3 in unmistakable pain after a back injury that eventually required offseason surgery. For two months, Scherzer had to watch his every move, get out of bed with great care, lift his kids with constant caution, because doctors told him the risk of reinjuring himself was high.
“I had to be locked in on every movement of my life. Getting out of bed, getting out of cars,” said Scherzer, who said the surgery alleviated “a tremendous amount of pain.”
Still, once that time was over, he didn’t worry anymore. He knew he could return, maybe even in the first two months of the season. The existential threat was neutralized, hardly even indulged. He was going to be fine.
But when Scherzer started throwing, he felt discomfort in his thumb that moved into his shoulder area. He felt the same thing late in the 2023 season, when he eventually strained the teres major in his shoulder. He thought maybe that had happened again.
“When I threw a ball, even 60 feet, it felt like a triceps strain,” Scherzer said. “Every time I tried to throw, my triceps would be completely locked. The ball could not come out of my hand without pain.” So he went for imaging. But MRI exam after MRI exam — on his shoulder, his arm, his neck — came back clean.
“Especially when I’ve got Strasburg in the back of your mind, as much as he’s dealt with [thoracic outlet syndrome] and nerve stuff, that really woke me up to be like, ‘Wait, what’s going on here?’” said Scherzer, referencing former Nationals teammate Stephen Strasburg, who recently retired after a long struggle to return after surgery. “This is not right. This is completely abnormal.”
Scherzer, 39, has never speculated about his retirement. Even as injuries piled up in recent years, he never even seemed willing to consider it. But when the pain wasn’t stopping and answers weren’t coming, he wondered.
“That definitely makes you question what’s going to happen here,” Scherzer said.
Eventually, Scherzer’s doctors — many of whom also treated Strasburg — diagnosed a nerve issue. And fortunately, at least for now, they did not think it originated in his shoulder the way it might with thoracic outlet syndrome. The pain, they concluded, was moving from his thumb up his arm, not emanating from his shoulder down it.
Scherzer thinks he knows why that started happening, too. He knows he has been gripping the ball harder than ever since MLB decided to enforce its rules against pitchers using sticky substances in 2021. He thinks that ban has caused other pitchers’ forearms — and, too reliably, their elbows — to give out as well. He thinks many of his fellow players are scared to say so because MLB decided to recommit to rules against the age-old tradition of relying on various gripping agents.
Those theories are for another day. Scherzer will never run out of them. He has been a vocal, but not universal, critic of MLB’s approach to modernizing the game — a cautious supporter of the pitch clock, a tantrum-throwing gadfly about sticky stuff. For years he sat at the bargaining table as a member of the players union’s subcommittee, and he developed a reputation for stubbornness and relentlessness. When Scherzer believes he is right, he cannot abide others being wrong. And he believes he is right about the steps MLB should take to put the game back in the hands of starting pitchers, both in the big leagues and in player development.
And now, in some ways, his influence is waning. He is no longer a member of the union’s executive subcommittee, so he will not be a de facto spokesperson for the players when it comes to bargaining issues. He knows MLB officials can dismiss him as someone who argues for the sake of argument. He suspects that often he is yelling into a void.
But he is a World Series champion, and he has made his money. MLB labeled him a cheater with a suspension for sticky stuff in 2023. His body of work is already Hall of Fame-worthy. The void can’t take any of that back.
The game, on the other hand, still represents a threat. The nerve injury, let alone offseason back surgery, reminded him of that. And for once, after years of relentless certainty, he isn’t sure how long he can hold it off.
“Fortunately enough, I’ve gotten this nerve under control. We’ve calmed it down, and I’ve been able to ramp back up and get back to the mound and pitch and not have this ramp up on me again,” Scherzer said. “But at the end of the day, this results from the thumb and the stress that goes into my thumb, and I have to be extremely diligent in my training program.”
Scherzer ditched the forearm strength program he has had since college. He is tripling the time he dedicates to grip muscles, though he is aware that if he pushes too hard, that could add stress on other fragile parts of the arm, too. So far, so good. But he knows the line is thin — so thin that he has grappled with what will happen if he has to cross it again.
“When I’m dealing with nerve stuff and when doctors are talking about TOS — I’m not getting [thoracic outlet] surgery. If this issue comes back and the only option is that surgery, I’m not getting that surgery,” Scherzer said. “The nerve stuff really makes you think long and hard about long-term consequences. That’s just the reality of pitching right now. Just trying to find a way to navigate it.”
When he pitched against another aging former ace, Dallas Keuchel, and the Tacoma Rainiers on Saturday night, Scherzer’s fastball topped out at 93 mph, according to the stadium radar gun. Most of his hardest fastballs followed moments of frustration. More often, the four-seamer sat at 91 or 92, a few mph below his average last year, three or four below his best Nationals years. Maybe the adrenaline of a major league game will restore a few mph. It usually does. But Scherzer admits he does not know for sure.
“For me, this is kind of spring training, so you take it with a grain of salt,” he said. “You more judge yourself on how you pitch at the big league level. It’s kind of pointless to think and speculate because there’s nothing that simulates facing hitters in that environment. That will be something to pay attention to or navigate as it comes through.”
He threw 79 pitches Saturday night, which at other points in his career would have been plenty to signal he was ready to start throwing 100 or so every five days. And Saturday, Scherzer was clear that if the Rangers want him to pitch against the surging Kansas City Royals this weekend, he can do it. But exactly what he can give is just not as sure of a thing as it used to be.
“It’s just a question of how many pitches I would have at the major league level right now and how to navigate where the team’s at, where the bullpen’s at,” Scherzer said. “Where I fit in with my capacity, what my pitch count would be at the major league level, that’s for discussion over the next few days.”
At the minor league level, Scherzer was not dominant. The first pitch he threw was an inside fastball that the Rainiers’ leadoff man redirected out of the park. He allowed three runs on four hits and two walks while striking out eight.
But when he left the mound after 4⅔ innings, the Rangers-heavy crowd at Dell Diamond stood and cheered him anyway.
They were not cheering his final line, not trying to encourage a long-beloved hometown star they hoped would be back soon. They were cheering his name. They were cheering his résumé. They were cheering because, if everyone was being honest with themselves, they were not sure when they might get to cheer him again.
And when Scherzer removed his unfamiliar cap and showed his balding head, breaking his usual intimidating game day character to offer a grateful salute, it felt different. This time, for the first time, he is wondering how many more chances they will get to cheer him, too.
