Max Scherzer’s Almost Perfect Game No-Hitter

[Nationals 6, Pirates 0]

Big time baseball history on back to back days.

And Max Scherzer was so close to baseball immortality. Not that a no-hitter is anything to roll your eyes about. It’s still baseball immortality. And his last two games have seen him throw 18 innings, allow one hit and strike out 26 hitters. But that little son of a bitch Jose Tabata! A guy who has absolutely done nothing but disappoint me, every Pirates fan out there, and piss off his teammates in spring training. He’s on the last legs of his career here. The game was out of reach; and Tabata leans into one.

The funny part of this is that I have several friends who are fans of other teams; and they all said the same thing “I’m genuinely pissed right now about that” via text. I felt the same way.

Most pitchers as a whole; they bore me. To me, they’re all like NFL kickers. They come and they go. They’re interchangeable parts. They’re volatile. I like hitters. I like offense. I don’t feel this way about Scherzer though. I like watching him throw. He blows away hitters and when he does it feels like you’re watching a home run. It’s exciting. He’s stomping around the mound like a damn condor and he’s animated. He’s all ate up and into it. He’s firing up his teammates. Max Scherzer is what pitching should look like.

Might I say that the last two outings have signaled a full changing of the guard? If I was locked in a jail for life and I was allowed by the courts to send one pitcher to the mound to win the game and get me out of jail; it would be Scherzer. It’s him and then everyone else right now in my mind.

And my daughter behaved magically in that ninth inning. I’m sitting there with her in her swing and it’s almost bed time. I found myself looking at her when I thought she was going to lose it and I’m telling her ‘this guy might make history’. Suddenly a serenity came over her – she sat there like a perfect angel and stared at me and let me watch the ninth inning in peace. Even she knows Max Scherzer is awesome.