You could be forgiven for thinking that Max Scherzer had reached the end of the line. For the second straight season, the three-time Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer missed significant time due to injuries, and when he was available, he struggled like never before. The 41-year-old right-hander held his ground the majors’ highest ERA in the first inning (12.96), had trouble with tilt throws and, after allowing 25 runs in his final 25 innings, missed the cut for the Division Series selection. But on Thursday, as the Blue Jays trailed the Mariners two games to one in the ALCS, Scherzer turned back the clock and held Seattle to just two runs in 5 2/3 innings as an aggressive offense chased down the Mariners starter. Luis Castillo in the third inning. Of Andres Gimenez And Vladimir Guerrero Jr. both homering for the second straight night, the Blue Jays won 8–2 to even the series.
Scherzer, who had last pitched in a game on September 24, added to the Mad Max lore and showed his legendary competitive fire in the fifth inning. With two outs, a runner on first base and Toronto leading 5-1, manager John Schneider went to the mound to talk to Scherzer, who growled and shooed the skipper away, striking out. Randy Arozarena after a curveball in the dirt, then retired two batters in the sixth before finally getting the hook.
“That’s what I’ve been waiting all year for, for Max to yell at me on the mound,” Schneider said afterwards. “It was amazing, I thought he was going to kill me.”
The Blue Jays have been waiting all year for this version of Scherzer. After being limited to nine starts last season while recovering from surgery to repair a hernia and then being sidelined by shoulder fatigue and a left hamstring strain, Scherzer made just seventeen starts in 2025. He missed almost three full months in the first half of the season due to inflammation in his right thumb, didn’t get his ERA below 4.00 until his 10th start (although that proved temporary) and never got his FIP below 4.50. He enjoyed a stretch of five consecutive quality starts from July 27 to August 19, a period in which he faced the Tigers, Dodgers and Cubs, but struggled afterward. Over his final 25 innings, he served up eight home runs and finished with career worsts in both ERA (5.19) and FIP (4.99).
Hence the Blue Jays’ decision to leave Scherzer off their roster and instead roll with a bullpen game against the Yankees in Game 4 of the Division Series, which follows Kevin Gausman, Trey YesavageAnd Shane Bieber. The move worked, as eight relievers (including opener Louis Varland) held the Yankees to two runs to end the series. Scherzer stayed involved leading up to the League Championship Series, working on getting his body healthy and throwing a simulated game.
After Castillo retired the Blue Jays on seven pitches in the top of the first inning, Scherzer wobbled at the bottom of the frame. After eliminating Arozarena on a grounder on his second pitch, he took the lead Cal Raleigh 0-2, after which he missed four pitches in a row and walked a batter. Then he walked Julio Rodriguez on four consecutive pitches, all low and away, and when he missed low with a 95.3 mph four-seater to Jorge Polancohis streak reached nine consecutive balls. For all of Scherzer’s first-inning issues this year — including batters hitting .407/.455/.753 against him in that frame — he hadn’t walked two in the frame all season, so this was something different.
“I kind of knew this could be a possibility,” Scherzer said when asked if his feeling for his pitches in the first inning was off. “The execution was just a check-off, trying to get an idea of where the zone is… I didn’t want the top order to beat me straight away, and unfortunately I walked two.”
Yet Scherzer averted disaster. He left a curveball in the zone, but Polanco only turned it into a foul ball. Two pitches later, he drove a changeup just off the plate and hit a hard grounder right to a perfectly positioned Giménez, who was practically on second base as he started a 6-3 double play:
After the Blue Jays failed to score in the second, the Mariners got on the board Josh Naylor opened the third by drilling a changeup on the outside edge of the strike zone, 370 feet to center field, just over the outstretched glove of Daulton Varshofor his second homer of the series:
Scherzer then put the team down, and for the second night in a row, the Blue Jays countered the Mariners’ early score with a big third inning, sending nine batters to the plate. In his first ALCS plate appearance, Isiah Kiner Fear chopped a double down the left field line. Kiner-Falefa was in the lineup at second base Anthony Santander was removed from the selection due to shortages in the back. Schneider shifted Addison Barger from third base to right field and Ernie Clemens from second to third place, opening the spot for IKF (Joey Loperfido replaced Santander on the roster).
Up next was Giménez, who hit just .210/.285/.313 (70 wRC+) with seven home runs during the regular season but had been a nuisance from the ninth spot in the postseason at .269/.321/.423 (109 wRC+); in the third inning of Game 3, he followed a leadoff double by Clement with an out homer George Kirby. This time he fought to a full count and then crushed a low-middle slider for a two-run homer to right field, giving the Blue Jays a 3-1 lead. While Castillo retired George Springer on a basis, Nathan Lucas and Guerrero both followed with singles up the middle, then Castillo walked Alejandro Kirk to load the bases.
That was enough for the manager Then Wilsonwhich Castillo withdrew after just 48 pitches; he had retired six of the first seven batters, but only one of the next six. Wilson — who said afterward that he planned to be aggressive with the bullpen — brought in the lefty Gabe Speier to take on the left-swinging Varsho. Speier had been their most effective reliever this side of closer Andrés Munoz during the regular season, but he served up two home runs against the left-swinging Tigers in the Division Series. He nibbled and eventually walked out with Varsho to force a run. As he recovered to strike out both Clement (no small feat considering his penchant for contact) and Barger, the Blue Jays were now up 3-1.
In the bottom of the third, Scherzer did something he hadn’t done since 2016: picked a runner at first base. Leo Rivasmaking his first start of the postseason, he walked five pitches. Arozarena hit a line drive, then Scherzer stepped off the rubber with a 1-1 hit against Raleigh and fired at Guerrero, who dropped the tag on the sliding Rivas. Umpire DJ Reyburn ruled him safe, but the Blue Jays challenged the decision and it was overturned:
Scherzer then struck out Raleigh on a curveball in the dirt, and it was all Blue Jays from then on. They scored two runs in the fourth, as Kiner-Falefa singled, took second on a sacrifice bunt by Giménez and scored on a Springer double, while Springer took third on a Lukes grounder. Wilson replaced Speier with Righty Matt Brashwho bounced a slider off Raleigh’s shin guard and well off the plate, bringing Springer home and extending the Blue Jays’ lead to 5-1.
At that moment, the biggest tension was how long Scherzer would last. Although he gave up a two-out single to Naylor, he capped the fourth inning with strikeouts of Rodríguez and Suárez, both chasing curveballs. He delivered a leadoff single for Dominic Song to start the fifth, then retired both Crawford and Rivas on hard-hit balls to the outfield; the latter smoked one at 170.8 km/h in the right center hole, but Barger did very well:
It was at this point that Schneider ventured to the mound. About the meeting, Scherzer said afterwards: “In my head I understood where the game status was. I knew how I wanted to attack, and then suddenly I saw Schneids come out, and I said something like, ‘Wow, whoa, whoa. I’m not getting out of this ball game. I feel too good.’ So we had a little conversation about actually wanting to stay in the ball game, but with some different words.
He got out of the inning and after what Schneider described as “another nice conversation in the tunnel,” Scherzer, who had thrown 74 pitches, returned for the sixth. He needed just two pitches to get Raleigh to fly out, then struck out Rodríguez on three pitches before walking Polanco, after which Schneider called for the left-hander. Mason Fluharty. He walked Naylor, then Suárez singled to right, scoring Polanco. For some reason, Naylor challenged Barger’s arm by going for third, and he was a country mile away. Instead of running the tying run at the plate with men on first and second, the Mariners ran themselves out of the inning:
That run was at Scherzer’s expense, but it did not detract from the impact of his performance. He had three hits and walked four, but struck out five while throwing 87 pitches. Of his twelve whiffs, six came on his curveball – four before strike three – and yet he threw only ten curves that night, compared to fifteen changeups, sixteen sliders and 45 four-seamers (he also threw one cutter). Only one of those ten curves was in the strike zone, the pitch where Polanco made an error for his GIDP. Mariners hitters chased the other nine, recording two outs and making one error when not whiffing.
It was a remarkable revival for the field. While there was talk of Scherzer tilting his pitches during the regular season it was all about his changeup, but batters did far less damage against that pitch (which they hit for a .279 average and a .395 slugging percentage) than against his curve, which they hit for a .349 average and a .674 slugging percentage. During Fox’s postgame broadcast, Kevin Burkhardt pointed out that Scherzer had only struck out eight batters on the curve all season, but had four again on the night.
“I just had a good feel for it tonight,” Scherzer said of his round, the prominence of which wasn’t part of his original game plan. “I could actually step on it and rip it and [get] some big strikeouts in some big situations.”
The Blue Jays scored another run in the seventh with a solo home run by Guerrero, his fifth in the Majors of the postseason, and then two more in the eighth, both driven in by Giménez. But the real story was Mad Max, who looked like the fiery big-game pitcher the Blue Jays signed for nights like this.
Kiri Oler contributed reporting to this piece.
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