Cy Young, fatherhood helping Scherzer move on from Game 5

He battled through a grind of a season that included a string of fluky, nagging ailments only to emerge with the third Cy Young Award of his career, an achievement that already creates talk of his Hall of Fame resume.

For Max Scherzer, though, the greatest pleasure of this offseason so far has been the mundane task now required of him several times a day. What exactly is the right-hander up to at the moment?

"Changing diapers," he said. "Wiping butts."

Brooklyn, the first child of Max and wife Erica, was born three weeks ago, so fatherhood is understandably first and foremost on the agenda right now at the Scherzer household.

Not that the new daddy is complaining at all. Diaper-changing and late-night feedings have made for a nice change of pace, and an opportunity to avoid looking back too much on a season that featured great personal highs but yet around round of team disappointment following the Nationals' latest first-round exit from the postseason.

"It just kind of helped make me forget about 2017 and how it ended," Scherzer said at Nationals WInterfest. "Right now, when I think about baseball, at least it's happy."

Scherzer's most recent appearance on the mound did not elicit any happy feelings. Summoned to pitch out of the bullpen for the first time since 2013, he wound up taking the loss in Game 5 of the National League Division Series, turning a 4-3 lead in the top of the fifth into a 7-4 deficit among a flurry of hits, misplays, hit batters and all sorts of misfortune.

It left a sour taste in everyone's mouths, but especially for Scherzer, whose otherwise brilliant season ended in disastrous fashion.

That provides some ample motivation for the 33-year-old heading into next season. Not that he needed any extra motivation.

"You've got to get better every single year," he said. "It doesn't matter. It's a new year; you have to find a way to improve yourself. You have to look back on everything that you've done and critique yourself and find the holes in your game that you can continue to get better."

There may be no bigger perfectionist in pitching than Scherzer, but it suits him well. After winning the Cy Young in 2016, he could have rested on his laurels. Instead, he indeed got better, lowering his ERA by nearly half a point, his WHIP to astronomically low levels and raising his strikeout rate to a career best.

So now he's motivated to be even better in 2018. Starting, perhaps, with keeping himself 100 percent healthy throughout the long season.

That became a problem for Scherzer during the second half last season, with a neck injury followed by a calf bruise followed by a hamstring strain that prevented him from starting in the NLDS until Game 3 (which, in turn, allowed him only to pitch in relief in Game 5).

Scherzer said he is well past those issues now.

"That's the thing: I'm truly 100 percent healthy. I'm running, lifting, throwing a baseball," he said. "I've been dreaming up ideas of how I want to get better in 2018. Things I'm looking to accomplish. And in the limited games of catch I'm playing, I really feel good about how the ball's coming out of my hand and what I can take forward into next year. From a training standpoint, I'm full go."

Scherzer was the recipient of a mountain of praise last month when he won his latest Cy Young Award, making him one of only 10 pitchers ever to win the honor three times. The only members of that group who aren't in the Hall of Fame are Clayton Kershaw (who will be there some day) and Roger Clemens (who would be there if not for allegations of performance-enhancing drug use).

So it's not unfair to already be wondering whether Scherzer has sealed his place in Cooperstown, even with plenty of career still ahead of him. He gets that, but he's not getting caught up in it.

"Obviously, when you get multiple Cy Youngs, I understand that," he said. "But that's not what motivates me to go out there and pitch. Trying to win the World Series is what this is all about. And trying to get better in 2017. It's nice, don't get me wrong. I hear it. But it's just not what's on my radar as far as what I'm trying to accomplish in 2018."