The Blue Jays announced Monday that right-hander Max Scherzer has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to tendinitis in his right forearm and inflammation in his left ankle. A timetable for his return to the roster has not yet been provided. Right-hander Chase Lee is up from Triple-A Buffalo to take Scherzer’s spot on the roster.
Scherzer signed a one-year, $3MM deal with the Jays during spring training. At the time the deal was reported, early indications were that Toronto would build the 41-year-old up slowly after an injury-plagued 2025 campaign. Injuries elsewhere on the staff perhaps accelerated that trajectory. José Berríos was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his elbow. Trey Yesavage opened the season on the injured list due to a shoulder impingement. Cody Ponce tore his ACL. Shane Bieber has yet to pitch due to elbow inflammation. He’s on the 60-day IL.
Things went well in Scherzer’s season debut. He tossed six innings, held the Rockies to a run on four hits and a walk, and sat 93.4 mph with his four-seamer — right in line with last year’s 93.6 mph average. It’s been mostly downhill from there. Scherzer does have one other quality start among his five appearances this year — two runs in six innings against the D-backs on April 18 — but he fanned only one batter in that outing. Overall, since that encouraging start to the season, he’s pitched a total of 12 innings and been rocked for 19 runs in 12 2/3 innings. His average fastball has clocked in under 93 mph in three of those four appearances (sitting 92.8 mph overall in that span).
At one point during spring training, there were ongoing questions about how the Jays would find innings for their growing stock of starting pitchers. Toronto had eight starter-caliber arms — Yesavage, Bieber, Ponce, Scherzer, Berríos, Kevin Gausman, Dylan Cease and Eric Lauer — but that supply has thinned to the point where GM Ross Atkins signed Patrick Corbin to bring another arm into the fold. Yesavage and Berríos appear set to return soon, but the days of a rotation “surplus” in Toronto feel like a distant memory.
Scherzer’s trip to the IL comes as he’s just one strikeout shy of 3500 in his career. He’s also only 18 1/3 innings from reaching 3000 innings in his career. He’d be just the 139th pitcher to ever reach 3000 innings, and he currently sits 11th all-time in strikeouts. If he can get back to the mound and pitch any meaningful number of innings with reasonable efficacy, he could climb as high as ninth all time before long. Scherzer currently trails Walter Johnson by 10 strikeouts for tenth on the all-time list, and he’s only 45 behind Gaylord Perry for No. 9 all-time.
Toronto is expected to reinstate Yesavage from the injured list tomorrow, and Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reported yesterday that Berríos is slated to throw around 75 pitches in a rehab start that same day.
It’s kind of a joke it took this long. Should have done this 2 weeks ago.
@bhd360
2 weeks ago they didn’t know Yesavage would be coming of the IL tomorrow.
He has been pitching injured for 2 weeks and has been absolutely horrific. It doesn’t have anything to do with Trey, if a guy isn’t healthy
@bhd360
Max was well enough to pitch, he wasn’t good enough to pitch.
He had one good start while pitching hurt (6 innings 2 runs), so clearly the horrific results of the other outings were not a foregone conclusion. And I suspect whatever minor leaguer would’ve replaced him would’ve been just as bad. It would’ve been someone even worse than Lazaro Estrada since he got hurt too. And there’s no point babying Max Scherzer’s arm to protect his future career, because his chances of pitching beyond this season are extremely remote (if he makes back from this at all).
@bhd360 He could be pitching old, not injured. That is harder to come back from.
At that point you gotta manage the club and bring up an arm, IMO. But I’m a bum in the comment section, just find it weird they’d let him pitch hurt at his age.
That is how bad the depth and injury situation is for the Jays.
Hate to say it, but it looks like ol Mad Max may not have it anymore.
Time remains undefeated.
@gbs42
Time is a funny thing…
@NoSaint,
It keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.
Dooooo, Doo Do Do.
@gbs42
The music references are cool (especially from my generation) but if it drifts into time/space paradoxes, all I’ll say is that we had this conversation tomorrow 😉😉
Father time comes for us all eventually. But I do hope he is able to make it back for at least a few more starts. Would be really cool to see him crack the top 10 of some leaderboards that are becoming increasingly out of reach for modern pitchers.
Beyond SkyDome
This is getting very reminiscent of Steve Carlton’s last couple of years with the Indians, Giants, and Twins. A once great that doesn’t realize his time has passed. Hopefully Scherzer doesn’t try to hang on as long as Lefty did because that was just hard to watch.
If someone was willing to pay you $3M plus escalators for one year of work would you think your time had passed?
If at one time I was making $43 million for that same one year’s work, then yes I would think my time had passed. $3 million to a man that has made over $350 million in his career is not a big salary to him. If he invested his money properly, it is basically just the same as the interest on his money market account. If he didn’t invest properly, that $3 million won’t make much of a difference anyway.
Your analysis doesn’t seem to factor in if you like what you’re doing or not. And if you’ve ever seen Max pitch the answer to that is very apparent. He’s getting paid more than or I will make in our lifetimes to do what he loves and people honestly think he’s just going to hang it up because they think he’s done or they think he’s made enough money. I don’t know any humans who work that way. I just know people who want them to work that way for their own narratives.
I value a man who fights to the bitter end more than I do a man who needs to feel like they went out on top.
I would close my ears and throw until I hit 3000IP and got over the strikeout hump. Once I hit the next milestones I’d consider my dignity again.
Lefty was way worse than Max is right now. He was basically throwing batting practice in the Metrodome.
Not to mention mad max held his own in the playoffs last year.
I remember a lot of hang-wringing here about having Max on the playoff roster and the same refrains about him being done. Being wrong then hasn’t seemed to have humbled anyone.
I mean, he pitched 4.1 innings of 1 run ball and left with the lead in game 7 of the WS last year. You could argue he should have hung it up THEN but its been like…3 weeks since then (game time).
I think my point more was that he may not have much left for an April start with the dome closed but might have something left for an October start if the jays can get there
Maybe he can have a match with Ric Flair
@Getgone2
Max tags out, Yesavage tags in?
It’s tough to walk towards the light, when you’ve had such an amazing career. Stand up dude with a lot of pride, so I hope he can come back from this, and finish on his terms. Certainly earned that right. And if it is gone, and he left it out on the field, he can walk away standing tall, headed towards upstate NY.
Now he has to use his cane in his left hand.
One more K and he’s at 3500 for his career. Just get him that and let him walk off into the sunset.
They are probably working on a retirement announcement and let him K a batter before removing him.
Cwiz:
True. 1 short of 3500.
But then he is only 10 short of Walter Johnson and retiring in sole possession of 19th Place All Time.
And then…
Amazing career but it’s over. Please.
He’s only got 10 in 5 starts this season. They can’t throw him out there 5 more times. Just one more game likely gets his round number. If that matters to him even. Agreed that it’s over.
I will say this if you go to one of his starts you will be entertained with an abundance of scoring from the opposition.
Guess the Sox will see Lauer on Wednesday instead of Scherzer now
Rsox – I was thinking the same thing. Should be an easy win for the Sox, but not as easy as Scherzer would have been.
The only concern is that they are letting Brayan “Gopher Ball” Bello make the start so nothing about the game was going to be easy
9.64 ERA….c’mon its still under 10…let him play!
Seriously, this may be Toronto giving him time to think about retirement.
…with a neck strain
He’s still got a few years left in him.
Mad Max may want to start thing about life beyond the Thunder Dome…
Watching Scherzer it felt like he was pitching through injury to help cover the innings.
You know Scherzer might not have been his old self his last two outings however alot of people seem to forget the wealth of knowledge he brings to the table. He is constantly talking with other pitchers and position players throughout the game and I’m sure it helps having that veteran presence in the dugout. I wish him well with his rehab.
Exactly my thoughts…he’s young enough to be one of the guys…but old enough to get the respect. The guys know that experience is a far better teacher than somebody with a textbook.
He’s in a unique position.
He will announce his retirement after the last game of the season.
I dont think so. If the Jays make the playoffs you can bet he will find a way to get straightened out enough to be in the rotation.
Well that’s possible but I meant this is his last year. He could even get released at some point this season if he gets to that point. He might’ve already thrown his last pitch.
Scherzer and Verlander both need to accept reality and retire.
It’s always a bit sad when these legendary pitchers, who’ve made all their money and racked up all their amazing stats, taint their legacies with atrocious comeback attempts as their final 1-3 seasons in the majors.
How does it taint their legacy? It doesn’t invalidate anything they’ve done. But regardless, they’re not playing for some fans’ nebulous idea of legacy. They’re playing because they make a lot of money and they love the game. Everyone in every profession slows down near the end of their career. And yet I don’t go into my dentist, who now only works two days a week with somewhat shaky hands, to tell him he’s tainting his legacy by not closing up shop.
3500k is something
To be 1 of 18 or 19 people in the existence of man to do something is worth going for.
Good luck mad max and jays. I hope u guys right the ship, but that WS L hangover may be real
Max , hang up the spikes already will ya!? Here’s a towel at no charge but don’t hurt yourself throwing it in..
he’s had two or three games to hit 3500 and still can’t get there. Give him a long break like 30 to 60 days, since other pitchers are coming back. Then try again. No one is going to remember a team helping him reach all these records so it’s a great opportunity and the least we can do for a HoF’er
Yeah, if he’s healthy; forearm tendonitis doesn’t necessarily mean his next pitch will snap that ligament — but I wouldn’t call this a good diagnosis in a nearly 42 year old pitcher that has seen his velocity dip and his ability to prevent runs essentially evaporate.
Max knows how to get a check, Healthy or not!
Chase has some big shoes to fill. He’s gotta be the new batting practice pitcher for the opposing team every 5th gane
It really puts Clayton Kershaw into perspective. He retired before it ever got like this, but he also was able to continue pitch extremely well even after his velo permanently dropped, and only have to worry about his health to be out there and effective for his team.
I don’t blame guys like Scherzer and Verlander for going until they can’t, but Kershaw was still putting up a 3.36 ERA (122 ERA+) in his last year, which isn’t far behind Scherzer or Verlander for their career ERA/ERA+, and the Dodgers were winning games because he still pitched well.
How much longer could he have done it? Hard to say, but he was still getting it done in his final year. And we never had to suffer through a season where everyone realized Clayton Kershaw held on too long.
Not to mention how that final season ended, but Kershaw had already announced his retirement long before that storybook ending.
Mad Max is a Sad Max.
Max is pitching for 3m. Loose change at the Scherzers. He obviously loves it.
Chase Lee did a great job in Detroit last year. I’m sure the Bluejays will be quite happy with his efforts.
Every year I predict the easy ones. When is the last year max didn’t go on IL. This won’t be his only trip to IL. only cost $3 mil this time.