BALTIMORE — Max Scherzer turned and watched the ball rocket toward left center field off the bat of former teammate Pete Alonso, the two-run home run eventually reaching its destination 412 feet from home plate. And as he’d done 368 times before in his career, Scherzer pivoted toward home and accepted a new baseball from plate umpire Mark Wegner.
Now 42 years old, Scherzer gloved the ball not with a defiant snatch but rather a resigned acceptance after yielding a home run that put the Toronto Blue Jays in a four-run hole as they faced elimination.
Moments later, Scherzer, 42, regrouped and recorded two more strikeouts to end the fifth inning, giving him 3,550 for his career, trailing old teammate Justin Verlander by just four. He walked without
fanfare off the Camden Yards mound and already decided that it would not be for the last time.
Oh, Scherzer’s career might be coming to a close after 19 seasons. Just not on a gray and ugly Wednesday, Sept. 23 in Baltimore before 10,562 fans who witnessed the defending American League champions’ elimination with a 4-2 victory by the Orioles.
No, Scherzer said that he plans to pitch in the Blue Jays’ finale in Game 162 on Sunday, possibly a shot to catch Verlander for eighth place on the all-time strikeout list. Verlander, 43, will pitch Saturday in Detroit, where he and Scherzer toiled together for five seasons.
They’re giving out bobbleheads in Detroit and treating Verlander with great fanfare as he pieced his body back together for one more start after spending almost the entire season on the injured list, making just one start March 30 and then going on the shelf with multiple maladies, an easy way of saying he’s simply old.
Scherzer, similarly, could not pin the first loss on Father Time this season. After his five-inning outing Wednesday, his innings pitched count hit just 77⅔, after throwing 85 in the regular season in 2025 and just 43 in 2024, after he underwent back surgery.
He threw 93 pitches Wednesday yet is set on going out on three days’ rest at Rogers Centre against the Cincinnati Reds.
“I’m hoping to be able to get back out there on Sunday and finish strong here. I want to pitch in front of Toronto again,” says Scherzer, who ingratiated himself to the clubhouse and city in two seasons with the Blue Jays that included a 2025 World Series run. “I get a chance to go do that.”
That does not sound like the actions of a man leaving a little more on the tank for 2027.
“I’ll probably say something here in the next couple days,” he says on his future.
His manager and teammates aren’t quite so sure.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider said before Wednesday’s game that he put it at 50-50 that Scherzer would either retire or come back; Schneider said he’d leave the door open in Toronto, though that’s a decision above his purview.
Toronto starter Shane Bieber, the 2020 Cy Young Award winner who arrived in an August 2025 trade, says he is appreciating the time spent with a future Hall of Famer. He also seems to believe Scherzer’s decision – retire or return – isn’t so simple.
“He’s a bit of a different breed, meant to do exactly what he’s doing. I can appreciate him for that,” Bieber told USA TODAY Sports. “There’s a lot of things I’ll inevitably try and take from him.
“But I still think he’s got a lot more to give, and he feels that way, too.”
Scherzer was in no mood for niceties Wednesday. Yet his performance – with a fastball ranging from 90.6 to 93.5 mph – exemplified the stubborn spirit that helped him win three Cy Young Awards and World Series championships in 2019 with the Washington Nationals and 2023 with the Texas Rangers.
He struck out the side looking in the first inning, one each on a fastball, slider and curveball. After the Orioles dinged him for two runs in the second on a pair of singles and two walks, he shut them out in the third and fourth before a one-out, full-count walk to Dylan Beavers in the fifth.
Up came Alonso and when you play nearly two decades, every game has the potential to be old home week. He and Alonso played with the New York Mets for nearly two seasons, and the starter opposite him, Chris Bassitt, is Scherzer’s close friend and former teammate in New York and Toronto.
“He's No. 1 in my book as the most respect I've ever had on someone in the game,” says Bassitt.
Alonso was less cordial, destroying a full-count, 91-mph fastball for his 41ST home run. It was 4-0. The Blue Jays were pushed closer toward elimination and Scherzer neared 90 pitches.
Yet what was it we said about Scherzer? Ah, yes, stubborn.
No one warmed in the Blue Jays bullpen. And Scherzer deployed a changeup to strike out the next two batters – Gunnar Henderson and Coby Mayo – who were each 5 years old when Scherzer was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks with the 11 TH overall pick in the 2006 draft.
That gave him seven strikeouts for the game, 2,550 for his career and set up a potentially juicy bit of drama. Perhaps we’ll find out just how stubborn Scherzer is.
He’ll pitch Sunday knowing exactly how many strikeouts Verlander – sitting on 2,554 – ended his career with. The two were dogged competitors and good teammates but never particularly close, even as their careers mirrored each other. Heck, one year after Scherzer signed a deal that guaranteed him $43.3 million with the Mets, Verlander followed suit with the exact annual value a year later.
Perhaps Scherzer will catch Verlander on the strikeout list and then receive his flowers from the Toronto crowd, walking off the mound tied for eighth all time. Or maybe do him one better.
Door No. 3 would be Scherzer returning for a 2027 season that’s clouded by the threat of a lockout. Yet just 91 more strikeouts would vault him past Verlander and Don Sutton and the great Tom Seaver into sixth place on the all-time strikeout list.
Worth the grind again? Or will Scherzer become the most decorated ballplayer in the elementary school pickup line in Jupiter, Florida?
Schneider somewhat jokingly admits Scherzer’s energy level can be “exhausting.” Heck, this outing was delayed a day by rain, with Scherzer demanding Tuesday that Schneider call him with weather updates, so, as Schneider said, “he can know whether to turn it on or turn it off.”
It is the concept of Mad Max, stalking circles around mounds for nearly two decades. He’ll turn it on one more time, and baseball may not see another like him.
“From humor to competitiveness to, just, him. A Hall of Famer who affected people around him,” says Schneider. “It’s been really cool to get to watch him compete and get to know him and the many things that make him tick.
“He’s kind of one of one. And it’s been really fun to watch him do his thing.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Max Scherzer retire? Future Hall of Famer hints at Blue Jays finale
