Washington Nationals: Max Scherzer hits milestone, wearing Dodger Blue

You never know what you have until you no longer have it. Well, that is not entirely true. We knew exactly what we had when Max Scherzer was pitching for the Washington Nationals. When the season began we had visions of Mad Max throwing immaculate innings, reaching 3000 strikeouts for his career, and winning another Cy Young Award.

Well, he is doing those things, the first two accomplished on a day he also almost threw a perfect game, and he continues doing a lot to keep his name in the Cy discussions. Unfortunately, he is doing those things on the West Coast, as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Scherzer has reached some strikeout milestones with the Nationals, and even passed Cy Young himself, on the all-time strikeout list earlier in the season. In his most recent start, Scherzer k’ed nine to reach 3000 for his career, while taking a perfect game into the eighth inning.

After striking out Eric Hosmer to get the milestone, it was Hos who hit a double to right field to break up what could have been a historic day for multiple reasons for Scherzer.

Former Nationals pitcher, Max Scherzer joined the 3000 strikeout club with his most recent performance.

With the nine strikeouts, Scherzer now has 3003 and sits just ten behind Justin Verlander, and 18th place, on the all-time list. Scherzer and Verlander were teammates in Detroit, and the latter is currently on the Injured List after undergoing Tommy John surgery last season.

For Nationals fans who watched Scherzer wheel and deal the past six and a half seasons, seeing the milestone is bittersweet. Being able to have celebrated the strikeout in DC, at Nationals Park, in the midst of a playoff run, would have been the perfect scenario. Seeing Max reach the mark in his new blue and white threads, in front of a crowd who is still in the honeymoon phase with him, was hard to watch.

Whenever the remarkable career of Max Scherzer comes to a close, he’ll still have accumulated more strikeouts while wearing a Nationals uniform than that of any other team. He may have gotten the milestone in a different jersey, though he got a lot of the k’s leading up to it wearing the Nats colors.

Congrats Max, on another great baseball achievement.