Scherzer unable to have his usual changeup command in 6-1 loss

The Nationals could not solve Mike Leake in the series finale, and that was part of a 6-1 loss to the Cardinals.

Right-hander Max Scherzer had an up-and-down start. While he struck out 10 hitters, command of his changeup caused issues, as the Cardinals put up a run in the first and two more in the fifth to salvage Game 3 of the series.

"It's never fun taking a loss," Scherzer said. "Any time that happens, you always reflect on the things you could be better at. The wild pitches, sometimes that happens. You just trying to get everything calibrated. Those are going to happen. Other things, some of the pitch executions that came down today that kind of led to some counts that they could drive the ball against me."

Manager Dusty Baker thought Scherzer was having trouble locating his slider. But Scherzer confirmed it was his changeup that he couldn't command as well as he usually does.

"I didn't have good feel for the changeup," Scherzer said. "There was pitches I wasn't executing it with. Just never was able to completely pitch with it."

Catcher Matt Wieters broke it down into two different changeups Scherzer wanted to throw: one was working, the other was not quite ending up in the zone where the starter had hoped.

"It's hard any time that, he still had the strikeout changeup, but the get-back-in-the-count changeup was the one that I think he was kind of missing a little bit today," Wieters said. "It's hard especially with a good fastball-hitting team like the Cardinals when you don't have that, you have to find a different way and Max did. He really did a great job of keeping us in the game, we just didn't score for him."

What was the most unusual pitching stat for Scherzer Wednesday? He uncorked three wild pitches on the day, a career high. Seven times in his career he had allowed two wild pitches in a game - never as a member of the Nationals.

Could that be just spiking the changeup or a combination of Wieters learning his pitcher's tendencies?

"There was a couple of them that were on the changeup," Scherzer said. "I just spiked a couple. There's a little adjustment I can make. I'll go to the bullpen this time and just work on it between starts. I'm not going to beat myself up over wild pitches. That's not part of my game. If I did, I wouldn't be here."

Wieters felt he could have helped a little bit. But you have to give the battery a little leeway after just two regular season starts working together.

"That's on me," Wieters said. "That's something that I'll get, I got to block it better, but I think as we get going, I'll kind of have a little better feel when Max is going to through that changeup either down and away from the righties or down and in to a lefty that I'll be able to get a better read on it. But that's something that I'll keep working on. And that's one thing that will definitely improve as the year goes on."

Scherzer also had five strikeouts in the first two innings. He had three more punchouts in his final two frames. For as bad as it could have been, he forced the Cardinals to leave five men on base and allowed only one extra-base hit. Starters always like to build something out of each start, even when it's a loss. Scherzer believes there were some positives in only his second start of the season.

He ended up allowing three runs, but only one of which was earned. He struck out 10 batters and walked only two.

"At the end of the day, sometimes even when you get punched in the face like this, I did a lot of good things today, too," Scherzer said. "I was able to collect a lot of swings and misses. Really was able to throw the cut slider into lefties really well today. Pitched in effectively. Just one of these things, yeah, this doesn't feel great, but look, I'm in a good situation, I'm ready to go forward. My next start, look to continue to pitch well."