TORONTO — As Maxwell Scherzer readies for the first start of his 19th big-league season Tuesday night versus the visiting Colorado Rockies, the sting from his last outing at Rogers Centre — Game 7 against the Los Angeles Dodgers — still lingers.
“You never get over it. Not that one. Nor should we. That’s how important winning a World Series is to all of us,” Scherzer said in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s game (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT). “You make all the sacrifices in the world, you work so hard to get here to have that one opportunity. To be that close and not get it, I don’t see how I’m ever going to get over that one. And good. You don’t want me to be able to get over it. Like, why would you want a player to be over it?”
Those sentiments demonstrate how deeply the competitive fires still burn for the 41-year-old, who re-signed on March 2 with the Toronto Blue Jays for a second season. Scherzer, who allowed one run in 4.1 innings in Game 7 and left up 3-1 in the eventual 5-4, 11-inning loss, described the post-season run as “the highest level of baseball you can possibly play,” and believed “once you get that taste in your mouth … you understand that’s the standard.”
Still, there are no comforts around not finishing the job, because “for some of the guys, it would have been their first World Series, their first moment having that, and I know, for me personally, how unbelievable that experience is of winning it.
“For these guys to not get that experience kills me because I feel like that team deserved it in so many different ways,” he added. “But, unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”
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What did happen last season for Scherzer is that he stumbled into a solution for his ongoing thumb issues, one that allowed him to make three post-season starts for the Blue Jays and feel that he can once again pitch on a World Series-calibre team.
The condo he rented in Toronto happened to be furnished with a piano, and around the all-star break last year, he started teaching his kids a little bit of piano. Scherzer had taken lessons when he was young, so he could play at a basic level, but to trigger his memory, he looked up some video tutorials on YouTube.
In the course of teaching himself to play Dr. Dre’s Still D.R.E. — he prefers playing rap songs on the piano — he noticed that his hand was sore afterward.
“Came to the field, played catch, and was like, Whoa, my hand feels better, my thumb feels better now,” said Scherzer, who told reporters that he may be “finally making a breakthrough” after an Aug. 8 clash versus Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers. “I was like, all right, let me play more piano. Played a little bit more, next start out, felt even better, so then, I chased it. Like, I really tried to fatigue my hand. By the next start, my thumb issue was gone. My hand felt normal again for the first time in like three years. So the light bulb went off, Ah, finally I got it.”
The difference playing the piano made, Scherzer believes, is that it forced him to work through the fingertips, rather than all the grip-strength exercises he’d done which “get the upper part of the forearm from the base of your fingers.”
“I’m working my hand,” he continued. “It wasn’t necessarily the grip strength. That’s my explanation to why this is working.”
Scherzer now plays the piano every day — he bought a portable keyboard for use on the road — and estimates that he totals three hours of playing time between each start. And while he’s added several more rap songs beyond Still D.R.E. to his repertoire, “I don’t consider myself good, but I can play a little bit.”
Self-assessments aside, if not for the “total coincidence” of his Toronto condo having a piano — he’s back in the same unit this season — there wouldn’t be a 19th season in the majors for him.
“Absolutely not,” Scherzer said. “In fact, I would have retired last year because there are two times I can remember where if I don’t make this next start, if I don’t make this bullpen, like guys, I’m done, I can’t go anymore. It was taking the fun away from pitching, I couldn’t just pitch through the pain because if I pitched through pain, I would blow out my shoulder. It happened multiple times (end of 2023, late in 2024) where I’m pitching through the pain in my thumb and I’m straining the muscles in my shoulder. I just didn’t care to keep blowing out my arm.
“There weren’t any treatments,” he continued. “I’d done cortisone shots. I’d done dry needling. I’d done shockwave electro-therapy on it. Those were miserable treatments, too. I was just at the end of the line. Fortunately, I was able to keep prolonging and prolonging it, and finally found the solution. Thank God. Because then I was able to get back pitching the way I could, and then obviously, playoff run.”
Followed by Season No. 19, which begins Tuesday, where his motivation is the same as it’s always been.
“To win a World Series. To be part of a team that can win a World Series,” he said. “I still feel like I can check that box of saying that I can be a starting pitcher on a World Series team. I always want to play as long as I can check that box.”
