Pic of the Week

Max Scherzer's 20-strikeout game in graphic form.

Pretty impressive game Wednesday by Max Scherzer against his old team, the Detroit Tigers. He struck out 20, as you probably know; as you probably also know, that ties the major league record for a nine-inning game.

That's impressive enough. But here's what gets me: He threw 119 pitches, and 96 of them were strikes.

For the Tigers, it might as well have been 96 Tears. 

Pic of the Week

Max Scherzer and catcher Wilson Ramos celebrate
at the end of Scherzer's no-hitter.

Sherz close and yet Sherz far.

Max Scherzer's no-hitter Saturday against the Pittsburgh Pirates was a debatable hit-by-pitch away from perfection. The HBP -- with two out in the ninth -- could have been overturned on the basis that Jose Tabita didn't try to get out of the way of the pitch, but that is an exceedingly rare call. 

It was made, rather famously, to preserve Don Drysdale's consecutive scoreless inning streak. Drysdale hit Dick Dietz of the Giants with the bases loaded, but home plate umpire Chris Pelekoudas refused to award the hitter first base. 

This was the second time in major league history that a perfect game was denied on a hit batter with two outs in the ninth inning. The first was in 1908, when Hooks Wiltse hit the opposing pitcher. (George McQuillan was also throwing a shutout.) Wiltse wound with with a 10-inning no-hitter.

The aces are falling

Adam Wainwright shut down the Pirates to clinch the
Division series for St. Louis, but he couldn't beat the
Dodgers in Game Three of the NLCS.

Aces ruled in the four Division Series. In the two League Championship Series, not so much.

There have been nine games played so far (five in the NLCS, four in the ALCS), which means there have been 18 starts. Six of those starts have been made by pitchers who have won Cy Young Awards (Zach Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, Jake Peavy, Justin Verlander) or who are about to (Max Scherzer). Peavy, whose Cy dates to 2007, isn't what he once was, but even if we leave him out there's Adam Wainwright, who hasn't won the award but has had three seasons in which he could have. None of those starts have been against each other.

Greinke, Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander, Wainwright. An impressive set of pitchers there. And their teams have gone 1-5 in their starts. The Dodgers got a win out of Greinke's start Wednesday. If you want to include Peavy, the teams are 1-6 with the big gun arms. If you want to include Jon Lester, the best of the Red Sox rotation — a fine pitcher but not quite on the level of the five names who led this paragraph — the teams are 1-7.

It isn't that the aces have pitched poorly. Verlander and Scherzer allowed just one run each, but the Tigers got shut out in Verlander's start and their bullpen imploded in Scherzer's. Kershaw (one run allowed) and Wainwright (two runs) were shut out in their starts, as was Lester (one run).

It's just been two series dominated not by the established aces but by the lesser names. Greinke got the win in his second time around; we'll see if that holds for the other stars as they begin to repeat the rotation cycle.