Matt Williams on Max Scherzer's no-hitter: Command in and out of zone

Manager Matt Williams said Max Scherzer's first career no-hitter, a 6-0 shutout of the Pirates, was something special and the team was proud to be able to share it with the hometown Nats Park crowd.

"What's the max capacity here?" Williams queried the media throng in the press conference room. "Forty-one thousand people on their feet from the time he went on for the ninth. That's a very good feeling for our club. Maxie was fantastic all day."

Scherzer's gem came within one out of a perfect game. In the ninth with two strikes and two outs, Pirates pinch-hitter Jose Tabata appeared to lean into the strike zone and was grazed by a Scherzer frontdoor slider. It was the Pirates' only baserunner of the game. But Williams was impressed that Scherzer was able to quickly regroup.

"He hit him with the baseball," Williams said. "It's difficult when that happens. But he settled back in and got the last guy out which shows his mental fortitude that he was able to make a pitch and get the last guy for the no-hitter."

Scherzer pitched nine innings, allowing no hits, no runs and no walks while striking out 10. He has now allowed just one hit in 18 innings, with no runs, one walk and 26 strikeouts. Scherzer has won seven of his last nine decisions.

Williams said the key for Scherzer is his pinpoint command the last two starts. And it keeps getting better.

"Command. Command in the zone," Williams said. "Command out of the zone. Throwing it where he needs to get strikes and then climbing the ladder expanding when he needs to as well. We saw a lot of that the last two starts that he's had. So, as a hitter you stand up there and you know he's going to throw strikes and it's easy to get in swing mode and he's able to expand laterally and vertical when he needs to as well. It's a little of both. Command is throwing strikes and not throwing strikes when you want to as well."

The Pirates arrived with 39 wins and had gone 21-6 their past 27 games. Their offense has been steady throughout their run, but Scherzer baffled the bats as he did last Sunday in Milwaukee.

"It stands out that the Pirates are a good club, and they've been playing extremely well, and every time Max takes the mound he's got a game plan and a way to get them out, and he just exercised that again today," Williams said. "We've seen it the last two starts especially."

Williams said Scherzer took advantage of the Pirates' quick attack, feeding them pitches that appeared hittable. Of the first six outs, five of them were pop-ups.

"We saw today that they were very aggressively early, swinging at first pitch fastballs especially," Williams said. "And that allowed Max to stay fresh because, going into the ninth inning, he was still under 100 pitches. That allows him to stay fresh and continue to reach back when he needs it."

Scherzer has only been pitching for the Nationals for three months, but his leadership and aggressiveness on the mound and at the plate, and even in the dugout when he's not pitching, has infected the clubhouse and the team's attitude.

"For us, he's our ace," Williams said. "He's the guy that started on Opening Day. He's the guy we look to to stop a streak, to continue one, if we're rolling. We feel very confident that when he goes out there we have a chance to win that game. So far this season he's given us opportunity every single time."

As the game wound down, teammates and coaches customarily stay away from a pitcher who could be working on a perfect game or a no-hitter. They don't want to mess up his routine between innings. Williams was asked if he spoke to Scherzer in the final two innings.

"The only thing that Max asked me was where were we in the lineup," Williams revealed. "He wanted to know whether he was going to have another AB. That was it. I said don't worry about it."

Williams remembered working with Scherzer when he was first drafted by the Diamondbacks in 2006. He managed him at Double-A Mobile in 2008 for part of the season. Williams saw some of the same special qualities back then as a rookie that Scherzer shows on the hill for the Nationals now.

"Well, as a young man, he was very tenacious," Williams said. "You can see that with some of his mannerisms on the mound. He's aggressive, and over time he has learned how, as we spoke about, how to expand when he needs to, how to manage pitch counts and get deep in ball games. That's the maturity that he's gone through, and the maturity of a pitcher as he becomes a veteran that has the kind of stuff that he has. He can manage those pitch counts early, get early outs and go deep into ball games. The last two have been an example of that."