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Max Scherzer completed (I’ll never save “pitched”, you can’t make me) five scoreless last time out, striking out nine of the 17 batters he faced, while throwing a total of 76 pitches in his fourth start of the Spring.
When Scherzer was done with that outing, the NL Cy Young winner in each of the last two seasons was up to 21 Ks in 14 innings of Grapefruit League action, over which he’s walked two, while holding opposing hitters to a .067 AVG.
Scherzer looked like he was ready for Opening Day in that outing, but he still has to make a few starts in Florida before the regular season gets underway.
“Three starts left,” he told reporters after facing the New York Mets, “and I wanted to go out there tonight and really attack the zone and fill it up with all the pitches, and I felt like I was able to do that tonight. Think I only fell behind two hitters, so that’s a real good sign — going out there for five innings and only falling behind two guys, so when you throw first pitch strikes, good things happen.”
This afternoon, the 33-year-old righty takes on the Miami Marlins in Jupiter, FL’s Roger Dean Stadium at 1:05 PM EDT, in a game that’s available via MLB’s Gameday Audio via Miami’s feed.
HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR TODAY’S GAME VS THE MARLINS:
#Nats at #Marlins: Eaton LF, Taylor CF, Adams 1B, Rendon 3B, Wieters C, Sierra RF, Reynolds SS, Sanchez 2B, Scherzer RHP
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) March 19, 2018