Article: The Blue Jays’ Max Scherzer Gamble Just Got Even Riskier

[Davy Andrews]

Max Scherzer's first start began with lat tightness and ended with a trip to the IL.

It feels like I’m writing these a couple times a week at this point, but here we go: welcome to your Twice-Weekly Max Scherzer’s Thumb Update: Injured List Edition. After the team signed the future Hall of Famer, the biggest questions were about Scherzer’s health, which limited him to just nine starts in 2024, and about his fastball velocity, which had fallen to just 92.6 mph in 2024. On Saturday, Scherzer made his first start in a Blue Jays uniform, and both questions got some very bad answers.

Scherzer made it through just three innings, allowing two runs on solo homers and striking out just one batter. More importantly, he left due to an injury and was visibly frustrated in the dugout after coming out. ‘I think that’s enough,” he reportedly told manager John Schneider. “I think we’re in imminent danger.’’ During the game, the issue was reported to be right lat soreness, but as you may recall from last season, Scherzer said that the lat and shoulder injuries that torpedoed his season started with thumb soreness. That’s why the issue has been such a concern over recent weeks, and it turned out that when Scherzer was placed on the 15-day injured list on Sunday morning, it wasn’t listed a lat injury, but as thumb inflammation.

Scherzer apparently didn’t feel right even when warming up before the game, warning Schneider and pitching coach Pete Walker of lat tightness but not wanting to crush the bullpen with a last-second scratch. “You’re really hurting but you can still go out there and pitch and navigate,” he told himself. “I just didn’t feel like I could really let the ball go,” he told reporters later. “I had to back down the effort level. I was able to at least get through three and not blow up the bullpen, but after that third inning, I could just tell that we were in imminent danger. If you keep pitching through this as the arm fatigues. This is going to go.”

If you didn’t like that quote, this one won’t make you feel any better. “This is 100% related to the thumb,” Scherzer said. “My shoulder, everything is compensating because of that thumb. The thumb is slightly better, but I still have discomfort in there. Even though I was able to grip the ball a little bit better today, I still have discomfort in my thumb. My arm is making adjustments because of that. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

Scherzer wasn’t joking about dialing back the effort level. “I couldn’t really go after that last gear, really let the ball fly, really step on the gas,” Scherzer said. “I had to back off the effort level to guard that lat. I’m not the same pitcher when I have to back up on intensity.’’ He threw just 19 fastballs, topping out at 3.4 mph and averaging just 91.9 mph, a big drop even from Scherzer’s 2024 nadir. As I write this on Monday morning, 211 pitchers have thrown at least 25 pitches, including one four-seamer, this season. Scherzer’s fastball ranks 184th in terms of velocity. All of us who were hoping he’d get healthy and see his velocity bounce back up somewhere closer to the league average should probably let go of that dream right now. Scherzer may come back and pitch well at some point, but we shouldn’t expect him to blow fastballs by anybody.

It's great that Scherzer is a veteran who knows his body well enough to take himself out before he does lasting damage, but it’s hard to see where he goes from here. He spent the offseason working to improve his thumb and grip strength, but it clearly hasn’t worked. He’s still facing the same issue: thumb pain that ripples back up the kinetic chain to his shoulder and back as he approaches the 50-pitch mark. “I’m frustrated. I want to pitch. I know I can pitch,” Scherzer said. “I know I can throw the ball really well. Unfortunately, I have an issue going on that’s coming from the thumb. I’ve got to address this. I’ve got to zero out that thumb before I pitch again.” The question is how to fix the thumb, and Scherzer is still looking for answers. He visited a thumb specialist in the United States on Monday, and there’s no doubt that he’ll do everything possible to get back to full strength. But at this point, it’s probably time to start wondering whether that’s really possible.

We’ll have more on Scherzer’s injury and what it does to the rotation and bullpen this week. For now, though, the biggest takeaway simply has to do with Scherzer himself. Scherzer pitched for scouts and said he felt better, and the Blue Jays took a calculated risk that he would be able to bounce back and provide something approaching a full season’s worth of solid production. I was a bold move with a high upside and an equally low downside. Right now, the odds of that gamble paying off look much lower.

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