With early escape, Scherzer sets tone in Nationals' latest win

PHOENIX - Max Scherzer likes to say that a starter's outings are most defined by his final 15 pitches. And so often that has been the case for the Nationals ace during his remarkable and sustained run of excellence.

Sometimes, though, the most important pitches come earlier. Much earlier. As he proved tonight during the Nationals' 3-1 win over the Diamondbacks, Scherzer's first 15 pitches were far more important than his final 15.

When Trea Turner led off the game with a home run to left, Scherzer was able to take the mound at Chase Field holding a 1-0 lead. But two batters into the bottom of the first, he faced a major jam: runners on second and third, nobody out, after he surrendered a single and then threw a bunt attempt into shallow right field.

How did the three-time Cy Young Award winner respond? He struck out perennial MVP candidate Paul Goldschmidt with a changeup. He got cleanup hitter Daniel Descalso to pop up to first. And he struck out Chris Owings on three pitches, the last one a cutter that Owings could only flail at in vain.

As he hopped off the mound, Scherzer pumped his fist and let out a roar. It was the end of the first inning. It might as well have been the end of the seventh.

"He was fired up, especially when Trea led off with the home run," manager Davey Martinez said. "We got that run for him early, and for him, he doesn't want to let the guys down. That was a big moment for him, and he fed off that."

The entire Nationals roster recognized the significance of that early moment.

"Maybe sometimes a pitcher in that situation tries to manage that inning," said Sean Doolittle, who pitched the ninth to record his eighth save. "And Max just kind of put his foot down. You could almost see him take it to another gear in that situation. Those two outs in the first, you could tell he was in for a big night."

Scherzer most certainly was in for a big night. On the heels of his 15-strikeout performance against the Phillies, he racked up 11 more in seven innings against the Diamondbacks. During one nine-inning stretch across the two outings, he actually totaled 22 strikeouts.

"I was on the attack," he said. "In the beginning part of the game, I kept finding myself in two-strike counts, and that's when you've just got to put them away. I was able to get a good string of strikeouts early in the game when we needed it."

The only hit that caused any damage against Scherzer all night came at the start of the third inning, when David Peralta reached down and golfed a curveball to right field for a leadoff home run. The game was tied 1-1, but it didn't stay that way for long, and Scherzer was the one who made sure of that.

At the plate with two on and two out in the fourth, the ace drilled a shot to the gap in right-center. It would've scored both runners easily, but when the ball hopped over the fence, Pedro Severino was forced to return to third base and Scherzer was held at second with a clutch double that nonetheless gave the Nationals the lead for good.

"I love RBIs, man," said Scherzer, who now has three of them this season to go along with a .292 batting average. "Pitchers, a lot of times, we get in RBI situations. That's just the way the game goes. I was able to get a big knock there to help us score a run. I compete at the plate. ... I might not be the best hitter. I kind of suck. But I'm going to go out there and compete with you. So those RBIs, I love them."

Scherzer was cruising along at a rate that suggested he might go deep into this game. And with two extra days off before his next scheduled start Friday against the Dodgers, this might have seemed like an opportune time to extend him. But with his pitch count at 99 after seven innings and both Brandon Kintzler and Doolittle available in the bullpen, Scherzer agreed with Martinez's decision to call it a night.

"It was a conversation, but he was good," Martinez said. "We wanted to keep him right around 100 pitches. He's had a big workload the last few starts. That was good for him. I told him Kintzler was good, Doolittle was good. He did really well."

"I could have gone back out there," Scherzer said. "But we called down and asked (Kintzler): 'Hey, do you want this full inning? Do you want a clean inning, or do you want me to go out there and face (leadoff hitter Nick) Ahmed?' He said he wanted a clean inning, so it was an easy decision for me to make because I have confidence in him to go out there and get the job done. That's the beauty of our bullpen."

And that's the beauty of a starter who now owns a 7-1 record, a 1.69 ERA, an 0.84 WHIP and 91 strikeouts in 58 2/3 innings.

"There are other guys that have really, really good stuff," Doolittle said. "And I think what separates Max is his competitiveness, the fire and energy that he pitches with, almost imposing his will at times on hitters. He's just in attack mode all the time. There's no setting hitters up for the second or third time through the lineup. He's just in attack mode right out of the gate. And I think it kind of sends a message to the other team that he's looking to be in control from the first pitch of the game."