Can Scherzer get to 20 wins and 300 strikeouts?

The pitching probables are out for the Nationals' three-game series in Philadelphia that begins tonight:

Monday: Erick Fedde vs. Jake Arrieta
Tuesday: Tanner Roark vs. Nick Pivetta
Wednesday: Stephen Strasburg vs. Aaron Nola

* If right-hander Joe Ross goes Thursday in the makeup game against the Cubs, right-hander Max Scherzer would likely make his next scheduled start Friday in Atlanta.

If you look further ahead on schedule, Scherzer would go again Sept. 20 against the Mets and Sept. 25 versus Miami. And he could even start the season finale Sept. 30 at Colorado.

That's the possibility of four more starts for Scherzer, who is 17-6. And a chance for 20 wins on the season.

Plus, at 271 strikeouts, he would need to average just a bit over seven punchouts in those four starts to have a shot at 300 for the season.

Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale recorded 300 strikeouts in 2017, becoming the first American League pitcher to reach that plateau in 18 years.

National League pitcher Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers reached 301 strikeouts in 2015, the first to do that since Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson in 2002.

Even still, as his skipper is well aware, Scherzer has recorded 252 or more strikeouts in five consecutive seasons.

"One, it's impressive that he has had over 250 (strikeouts) for the last five years," said Davey Martinez. "That's incredible. And to reach that milestone at 300, not so many guys can say that they did that. It's just a testament. If I know Max, I think he's aware of it and he's going to do everything he can to get it. I'm looking forward to watching him get it. It'll be exciting.

"(It's) possible (he) could get four more starts. Like I said, we will play it by ear. But right now he's scheduled to get four starts. But we will see where we're at."

* Two days later, Martinez was still very impressed with right-hander Ross' return to the major leagues on Friday when he was able to fire 1 2/3 innings against the Cubs in a game that was washed away after a long rain delay. He allowed one hit and hit a batter, but also struck out one and was able to get very impressive velocity around 95 to 96 mph.

"Electric. He was electric. Really was," Martinez said. "I made a comment yesterday about I saw him make two warm-up pitches when he came in before the first inning. I looked at (pitching coach) Derek Lilliquist and I said, 'Boy, his ball is really coming out hot.' And he said, 'Yeah, he had a good bullpen session. So let's see what happens.'

"Man, he threw the ball really well. So that was exciting. I was talking about maybe bumping him up because he threw 24 pitches, but I'm not doing it. I'm going to keep him on his five-day and keep him going."

One thing that Martinez would like to see is Ross' power changeup ease up a bit, but everything else looks good.

"Yeah, we'd actually like to see it get down a little bit." Martinez said. "I think it's too hard. And even Jefry (Rodriguez). Yesterday, he threw some nice changeups, but they were 90, 91 mph. I want to see if we can get that down a couple miles per hour. Because if you're throwing 96, 97 mph, you can throw an 86 mph changeup. That's pretty good."