Baseball has a way of humbling you no matter how many rings or Cy Youngs are sitting in your trophy case, but every so often it hands a guy a moment that just feels earned. Max Scherzer got his Saturday night in Philadelphia, blowing a fastball by Kyle Schwarber in the sixth inning to record career strikeout number 3,516 and slide into sole possession of 10th place on the all-time list, passing Walter 'Big Train' Johnson in the process.
With his strikeout of Kyle Scharber, Max Scherzer just moved into sole possession of 10th place on the all-time @MLB strikeout list with 3,516, passing Hall of Famer Walter "Big Train" Johnson.
Feinsand had been counting down to it all night. Before first pitch he flagged that Scherzer was four Ks away from Johnson and, separately, that Aaron Nola was closing in on 2,000 strikeouts of his own — a nice little subplot for a Citizens Bank Park crowd that got two milestone chases for the price of one ticket.
There could be a pair of notable milestones at Citizens Bank Park tonight: Max Scherzer is four strikeouts away from passing Walter Johnson for 10th on the all-time K list, while Aaron Nola needs three strikeouts to become the seventh active pitcher with 2,000 career Ks.
The number itself is almost hard to process. Johnson threw his last pitch in 1927. He struck out 3,509 men across 21 seasons with a dead ball, no radar guns, and a workload that would get a modern pitcher shut down in June. Scherzer got there throwing 96 mph at an age when most starters are three years into a broadcast booth job, and Blue Jays manager John Schneider didn't hide his admiration afterward, calling him 'the ultimate competitor.'
'The ultimate competitor': Mad Max passes Big Train with 3,516th career K https://t.co/4zmAxD1lic
It wasn't a clean night start to finish. Scherzer worked five scoreless innings before Trea Turner and Bryce Harper hit back-to-back home runs to tie the game and end his outing, in a contest Toronto went on to win 7-5. He also didn't quite get to the other number Feinsand had flagged — 3,000 career innings, a plateau only 138 pitchers in history have reached — falling just short after logging five frames instead of the 6 1/3 he needed.
The list ahead of him is the kind of company that makes you stop scrolling: Gaylord Perry sits at 3,534, one spot up, with Justin Verlander right behind him among active arms at 3,554. Verlander has signaled this season could be his last, which means the strikeout crown among current pitchers may soon fall to Scherzer by default rather than by chase. Either way, Cooperstown was already circled on his calendar — this just moves the ceremony a little higher up the marble.