With another gem on big stage, Scherzer earns elite praise

ST. LOUIS - Dusty Baker, in his five decades in baseball, has seen enough pitchers to be able to compile a short list of the very best of the best. He rattled off some of the names that came to mind tonight: Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, J.R. Richard, Clayton Kershaw.

And Max Scherzer, who a bit earlier had wrapped up yet another of his utterly dominant starts, shutting out the Cardinals over seven innings to carry the Nationals to a 7-2 victory on Sunday Night Baseball.

"Guys like he and Kershaw, the top pitchers in baseball, that's what they're supposed to do," Baker said. "They're paid handsomely to do it. And they take pride in doing that, stopping streaks. I've seen that a lot with the great pitchers: Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, J.R. Richard. Those guys are known to stop streaks. They come out ready. They know that the team really depends on them.

"A game like this, on a national stage on ESPN, he really comes out ready. I wasn't surprised, and none of us here are surprised."

No, there's very little at this point Scherzer can do to surprise folks. Strike out the side in the first inning? Been there, done that. Reach double-digit strikeouts by the fifth inning? Yawn. Lower his ERA to 1.94? Well, that actually is new territory for a guy whose career-best prior to this season was 2.79.

It's entirely possible, though, that those who are around Scherzer all the time aren't fully appreciating just what they're witnessing here. It's easy to take for granted that every fifth night he is going to do something special, with hardly a blip along the way.

"I think you look back and appreciate it after the year's over," catcher Matt Wieters said. "In our game, it's too hard to sit back and enjoy things in the moment, because as soon as you enjoy something in the moment you're not getting better or to the next level. I'm sure that's how Max thinks about it, too. But one day you'll sit back and you'll think about things, and it'll be nice to see all that you were a part of."

Here's what Wieters and the rest of the Nationals have been a part of in recent weeks: Over his last eight starts, Scherzer is 6-2 with an 0.89 ERA. He has surrendered only 24 hits in 61 innings. He has struck out 87 batters. He has completed at least seven innings each time out. He has allowed two or fewer earned runs and five or fewer hits in every start.

"That's why he's an All-Star," said no less an authority than Bryce Harper. "That's why he's Max Scherzer. He's one of the best in the league, if not the best. If there's a guy I want on the mound every fifth day, it's him. He's got his plan, he's got his mentality and he does things for this club, this organization, that he needs to do to bring us up to the next level. That's why he is who he is, and it's fun to watch."

Scherzer already was enjoying another All-Star-worthy season before this recent surge began, but he has managed to take it to a new level since. The low point, if you can even call it that, was a May 20 start in Atlanta in which he gave up three runs in five innings, needing 106 pitches to do it.

The difference since then?

"It's all about hands," Scherzer said. "I made that mechanical adjustment, brought my hands up higher. And when my hands are up higher, it just my allows my mechanics to work in a much more ... my arm's a little shorter and it just allows me to use all pitches so much better. That Atlanta start was really one of my worst starts of how bad I felt out there on the mound, just feeling lost. And since that start, I've really made an adjustment to get back on track, and I've just been really throwing the ball well ever since."

Scherzer found out earlier in the day he had been named to the All-Star team for the fifth consecutive season. He has started the Midsummer Classic once before, in 2013 while he was still pitching for the Tigers.

Another starting assignment certainly seems in order. Kershaw is his only real competition, and the Dodgers ace has said he intends to pitch on his normal schedule in next Sunday's first-half finale, which would make him ineligible to pitch two nights later in Miami.

"I'm not answering, come on," Scherzer said with a laugh. "I still got another start left. I'm not talking about the All-Star Game until we're actually there."

We'll let his catcher do the campaigning for him, then.

"I don't think you can go wrong with either one of those two," Wieters said. "But I know his mentality will be ready for a big game. I've seen that time and time again. So you don't have to worry about him getting ready to start that game."