Yet while some things will be forever, a 41-year-old with a surgically repaired back and a balky thumb that may portend arm trouble and thinning hair beneath his Toronto Blue Jays cap – fifth team in five years – suggests something else.
That it might be wise to take a look around, to cherish the moment, to appreciate the opportunity before the man never again throws another competitive pitch.
Then again, Mad Max could never.
The mound-stalking, snarling, three-time Cy Young Award winner has been largely missing the past four years, disappeared due to injury and a general lack of dominance and changes of addresses that, combined with performance, might gently suggest that his voice ought not be the loudest in the room.
Yet Scherzer’s Toronto era took a massive turn Oct. 17, two outs, fifth inning, Game 4, John Schneider heading out to the mound and, even though they’ve been co-workers since January, about to really meet Scherzer for the first time.
There were death stares and cuss words and raised voices – OK, all of that from Scherzer – and bemused infielders watching a future Hall of Famer take on his purest form.
“I thought he was going to kill me,” says Schneider. “It was great.”
Yeah, it takes a certain kind of masochist to manage a major league team, and a certain touch to realize that, even as most playoff starts nowadays are expired by the fourth inning, and that Scherzer’s Seattle Mariners counterpart, Luis Castillo, was hooked in the third inning, that performance – and pedigree – earns some slack.
“I’ve been waiting for that all year, for Max to yell at me on the mound,” Schneider told reporters in Seattle. “I think at that point there’s numbers, there’s projections, there’s strategy, and there’s people.
“So I was trusting people.”
And Scherzer rewarded him, striking out Randy Arozarena with a nasty curveball to strand a runner, and preserve Toronto’s four-run lead in an eventual 8-2 victory.
This ALCS is now tied, 2-2, just 48 hours after the Blue Jays stared at a 2-0 deficit and the notion that the next time the lads would toss the ball around together might come in Dunedin, not Toronto.
Yet suddenly, the Blue Jays are outflanking the Mariners in the most important ways. Their starters are pitching deeper into games, exposing Seattle’s bullpen further. They amassed 29 hits in two games in Seattle, with Game 5 in front of their Western Canada supporters to come.
It’s what one expects from the No. 1 seed in these AL playoffs. It’s just that Scherzer wasn’t expected to be a key part of it.
He hadn’t pitched since Sept. 24, the Blue Jays excluding him from the ALDS roster because a four- or five-inning starter who doesn’t miss a ton of bats simply had no role in that format.
And to be brutally honest, Scherzer’s last four postseason starts dating to 2022 produced an 0-2 record, 8.79 ERA and a 1.67 WHIP.
In his last October run, he pitched three shutout innings in Game 3 of the 2023 World Series, then abruptly exited while warming up in the fourth, back tightness ending his postseason. The Texas Rangers went on to win the World Series; Scherzer headed for offseason back surgery.
This year, myriad aches and pains – including that vexing thumb condition – limited Scherzer to 17 starts. Game 4, though, was different: Scherzer took a minute to find his rhythm in issuing two first-inning walks, got a key double-play ball, gave up a Josh Naylor second-inning home run and then was cruising.
He was snapping his curveball, and catcher Alejandro Kirk kept pressing for it. He picked off a runner. He outlasted Castillo.
It was within all that context that Schneider strolled to the mound and stared up at the toughest dude to lift from the game.
Good luck, Schneids.
“And then all of a sudden I saw Schneids coming out, and I kind of went, ‘Woah, woah, woah,” says Scherzer in a postgame news conference. “Like, I’m not coming out of this ballgame. I feel too good.
“So we had a little conversation that basically I wanted to stay in the game but just with some other words involved. I just knew I was strong, I knew I wanted the ball, I knew I could get outs in this situation.
“I just wanted to stay in. I wanted it.”
He got it. And got Arozarena, and stalked to the dugout, leading to another Schneider-Scherzer confab –away from cameras – that Schneider described as “another fun conversation, in the tunnel.”
So Scherzer got the sixth, too, and took down two more outs before leaving to a roar from the Blue Jays fans on hand.
With two more wins, the Blue Jays will reach the World Series for the first time since 1993. That would likely ensure another Scherzer start, probably against his former Los Angeles Dodgers club.
Yet there are no guarantees, not in this game, certainly not for those north of 40. So when Schneider lifted Scherzer, he tucked the ball in his back pocket.
“I just put it in my pocket and brought it in the dugout,” says Schneider. “Pretty cool for Max to have. He’s got a lot of stuff on his mantle, but I don’t know if he wanted it.”
Perhaps someday, but maybe not now. The sentimental glances around the stadium, the mementoes, the curtain calls are at least for now, still for another day.
On this one, Mad Max was back.
