Max Scherzer is experiencing an eventful week, though that seems to be the case most of the time for the Washington Nationals ace.
The right-hander was named National League Player of the Week on Monday, the NL Pitcher of the Month on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday he went on the paternity list with his wife, Erica, having their second daughter Thursday morning.
Scherzer (8-5, 2.43 ERA) is slated to be activated to start at home Saturday against the Kansas City Royals, who will counter with right-hander Glenn Sparkman (2-4, 5.09).
It will be Scherzer’s final appearance before the All-Star Game on Tuesday in Cleveland. He started last year’s All-Star Game at Nationals Park.
Scherzer went 6-0 last month with a 1.00 ERA, 68 strikeouts and just five walks in 45 innings.
“Keep training hard, keeping cleaning up my mechanics,” Scherzer told The Washington Times this week about his next-level performance. “I continue to find ways to drive through the baseball.”
And he keeps preparing for his starts with incredible detail.
He threw his bullpen session on Wednesday at Nationals Park while wearing a throwback Montreal Expos uniform, because that is what he will wear Saturday when the Nationals honor their Canadian heritage. Scherzer pays attention to detail and even practices his pickoff move without a ball before he starts.
In his latest start, Scherzer went eight innings on Sunday and struck out 14 while giving up just one run in a 2-1 victory at Detroit.
In his career, Scherzer is 11-5 with a 3.53 ERA against the Royals in 21 starts. The last time he faced them was in 2014, when he was 2-1 in four starts against them. The St. Louis native was 3-0 in four starts against Kansas City in 2013.
“I have locked in on my mechanics,” Scherzer said this week. “I was really able to sharpen up all of my off-speed pitches that I throw.”
Sparkman is coming off a rough start.
He went three innings and gave up eight runs on nine hits with one walk and one strikeout in an 11-4 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday.
“This American League with Boston and the Yankees, this team — they’ve got a bunch of really young good-looking hitters — they’re going to punish you if your command is not good,” Royals manager Ned Yost told reporters after Sparkman lost in Toronto.
Sparkman broke into the majors with two appearances in 2017 with Toronto. Last year, the Texas native was 0-3 with a 4.46 ERA in 15 games (three starts) for the Royals. He will be making his first career appearance against Washington.
Sparkman was drafted out of college by the Royals in the 20th round in 2013 by Kansas City. After the 2016 season, he went to the Blue Jays in the Rule 5 draft, then was sent back to the Royals on July 8, 2017.
In the first game of the weekend series Friday, the Royals scored three in the top of the 11th to win 7-4 despite allowing 11 walks.
Washington left 19 runners on base and saw its four-game winning streak come to an end despite two RBIs by Ryan Zimmerman, giving him 1,001 for his career. Zimmerman had three doubles, but he appeared winded, and he committed a key 11th-inning error.
The Nationals are 6-14 in extra innings the past two years, including 2-4 this year.
The Royals had lost 10 of their past 13 games before winning the first game of the series.