Unable to replicate October vibe, Scherzer content with '20 debut

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - If Max Scherzer has proven nothing else, it's that he'll never take the mound with anything less than 100 percent commitment to compete. Having said that, not all starts are created equal. And a start on Feb. 22 can never compare to a start on Oct. 30, even if the opponent is the same.

"The last game I pitched was Game 7 of the World Series. And we're talking about spring training," Scherzer said Saturday night after making his 2020 exhibition debut. "So it's a little hard to replicate that."

As much as the fans were into it for the Grapefruit League opener between the Nationals and Astros, it bore no comparison to the scene Scherzer experienced last October in Houston, with the ultimate prize at stake.

Still, Scherzer did the best he could to find purpose in Saturday's two-inning outing. He did not allow a run. He permitted one single and issued one walk, neither runner coming around to score. He finished with 22 pitches (13 strikes).

The game may have rained out after those two innings, but Scherzer completed his planned start and emerged with positive vibes.

"Good to be out there," he said. "I threw all my pitches. That's all you're looking for when you get out there. Now I'll get into my routine on a five-day rotation here, and off and running."

Scherzer, who arrived in Florida in early January and has been building up his arm ever since, maintained a fastball velocity of 92-95 mph while also mixing in several effective sliders and changeups. He struck out a pair, each on off-speed pitches.

"Just being able to throw all my pitches for strikes," the 35-year-old said when asked what felt good. "All the off-speed, I thought I was able to execute those."

It's foolish to draw any conclusions on Feb. 22. It's even more foolish when Scherzer faced zero Astros regulars, even if that would have been his preference.

"Of course you want to face them," he said. "You want to face the best. They're a great lineup. I get it, it's early spring. You're not going to see them. But I always enjoy facing the best."

At least Scherzer got to face anybody. Nobody else on the Nationals pitching staff was able to take the mound due to the rainout.

All of the relievers who had been scheduled to appear Saturday night will now pitch Sunday afternoon in one of the Nats' split-squad games (home versus Astros, road versus Marlins). All of them except for Joe Ross, who had one of the most miserable nights on the roster.

Scheduled to replace Scherzer for the bottom of the third, Ross had to start warming up when it was announced the game would resume after the rain delay at 8:15 p.m., a time that was later bumped up to 8 p.m. But only minutes earlier, the skies opened up over the ballpark and didn't let up.

By that point, Ross had warmed up enough to knock him out of action for several days.

"We'll have to bump him back," manager Davey Martinez said. "He got hot, like he was coming in the game. They told us we were probably going to start at 8 o'clock, so we had to get him going. Now we'll bump him back and we'll reschedule."