Max Scherzer: Magnificent Pitcher, Prometheus Bound

Scherzer has won the National League Cy Young pitching award for the last two years. He currently leads the both the National and American Leagues in strikeouts. In 2016, he tied the Major League Baseball record of 20 strikeouts in one game.  His current Earned Run Average (ERA) is 2.03. He is also 33 years old, an age when some pitchers are losing a step or two, but Scherzer has been consistent. And yet, yesterday, he held the Philadelphia Phillies to one run, four hits and three walks--a feat that for most pitchers would have been a winnable game, and the Nationals lost 1-0. His record is 10 wins and four losses--for his last four games he has given up no more than two runs and has lost three games. 

I love watching Scherzer pitch because when he is at his best he appears in perfect control. It feels like what it must have been like to see Alfred Hitchcock direct a movie. And even when he doesn't have his best stuff, he's experienced enough to find other ways to get batters out. When I am out for the evening and the Nationals' game is being broadcast, my wife will lovingly ask if she should DVR it. I usually say no because the idea of spending three hours watching a game that's over when a new one will be played in a few hours doesn't seem like a profitable use of time. But if Scherzer is pitching that night, I say yes. Watching him is time well spent.

And the thing of it is, it's not just his pitching. Watching Scherzer is like a watching a 12-year old kid. He loves playing! Most pitchers are not good hitters. The thinking is pitching itself requires so much concentration and skill that pitchers don't have the time to work at their hitting. (It remind me of when Robert DeNiro played a saxophonist in New York, New York and , as a dedicated actor, actually learned to play the saxophone. When he saw the finished film and his performance, he told the director, "I guess I should have spent less time with that damn saxophone.") This is one of the reasons why the American League has the practice of a designated hitter who takes the place of the weakest hitter, who is usually the pitcher. When they have to bat, some pitchers go out and swing at anything to be able to go back, sit on the bench and do their zen thing of thinking about their pitching. Scherzer takes hitting seriously. He is currently batting .250, which is the ninth highest on the team, although, admittedly, that is for fewer at bats because he usually only plays every fifth game. He has been successfully used as a pinch hitter. On April 9, he stole a base, something he has wanted to do for years but his managers have told him not to out of fear he would injure himself sliding into second base. He did it, and he didn't get hurt. Scherzer is just fun to watch.

But he plays for the Nationals. Scherzer's last four games tell it all. Admittedly, the Nationals are a better team than the Washington Senators I followed as a youngster. There was a book and a musical (Damn Yankees) about a man who felt he had to sell his soul to the devil so that the Senators would win. But the morale and attitude of both teams have similarities. My Washington Senators hero was Eddie Yost, who played third base and was known for his "good eye" when at bat. He had over 1,600 walks in his 18-year career. But his batting average for the Senators was low--.224 in his last year. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers in 1959, and in his first year there he batted .278--leaving the Senators appeared to revitalize him. I believe it is true that when most people on the team are hitting, it inspires the other members. When they are not, it can de-vitalize them. I think it's happening to the Nationals now. And I think it affects pitchers too. I worry about Scherzer.

And so Scherzer is bound to the rock that is the Washington Nationals. How hard must it be for a pitcher to limit the other team to one run and lose! Aeschylus wrote a play titled Prometheus Bound in the Fifth Century B.C. about the Titan who defied Zeus, gave man fire, and as a punishment was chained to a rock for eternity while an eagle daily ate his liver. Aeschylus also wrote a sequel called Prometheus Unbound in which Prometheus is freed from his imprisonment by Hercules. That play is now lost. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley penned a drama of that name, imagining what Aeschylus had written, but, as a dramatist, Shelley was no Aeschylus. Here's hoping the rest of the Washington Nationals find Herculean strength and unbind Scherzer, writing their own Promethean sequel.

Copyright 2018 by John T. Aquino