SEATTLE — This is why the Toronto Blue Jays signed Max Scherzer in the offseason.
The three-time Cy Young Award winner is set to take the mound Thursday night as the Blue Jays try to even the best-of-seven American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners at two games apiece.
“I love it. This is what you play for,” the 41-year-old right-hander said. “You want to have the ball in this situation, you want to be pitching in the postseason.
“Every game in the postseason’s a must-win, so when you step on the field in these situations, you got to bring it, you got to have your ‘A’ game, you got to really be on top of your stuff. So they’re going to be as prepared as heck to go against me and try to beat me, and I got to do the same and find a way to navigate it.”
He will hope to get as much support on Thursday as the Blue Jays supplied for starter Shane Bieber on Wednesday. Andres Gimenez, George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger homered as Toronto clobbered Seattle 13-4 in Game 3. Julio Rodriguez, Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh went deep for the hosts.
Scherzer, who was left off the Blue Jays’ AL Division Series roster because of a neck ailment, will be making his first appearance since Sept. 24.
He went 5-5 with a 5.19 ERA in 17 regular-season starts, missing nearly three months due to an inflamed right thumb.
“I don’t want to sit here and go backwards and blame injuries for any way I pitched,” Scherzer said. “When I take the mound, I take the mound, and I have the attitude (that) I’m going to win no matter what.”
That’s the Scherzer his teammates have come to know and love.
“I expect Max to be Max in the aspect of just go out there and execute at a very, very high level,” fellow right-hander Chris Bassitt said.
Scherzer is 0-3 with a 5.00 ERA over his past eight postseason appearances since helping the Houston Astros win the World Series title in 2019. However, he has had success against the Mariners, going 4-2 with a 2.97 ERA in nine career starts against them.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider hopes the time off will be beneficial for Scherzer.
“He kept himself ready to throw, obviously, with a number of pitches, but I think probably more so than even he was leading on to you or anyone, he needed a little bit of a break to feel good physically,” Schneider said. “It’s easy to trust a guy who has been through what he’s been through and done what he’s done.”
The Mariners feel much the same way about their Game 4 starter, Luis Castillo. The right-hander went 11-8 with a 3.54 ERA in 32 regular-season starts, and he is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA in the postseason.
Castillo pitched a total of six scoreless innings of one-hit ball against the Detroit Tigers in the AL Division Series, including coming out of the bullpen to get the victory in the decisive Game 5, which went 15 innings.
While Scherzer struggled down the stretch, going 0-3 with a 9.95 ERA in his final five starts before being shut down, Castillo went at least six innings in each of his last four regular-season starts, allowing no more than one run in any of them.
“Yeah, I’ve always said it, it’s a long season in baseball, there’s highs and lows,” he said. “You always have to go out there, keep your head up and just wait for those good moments to come. To me, it came at the right time, just because I knew it was an important part that needed to happen. For me, it was just kind of the start, you know, of something good to come.”
Castillo is 2-3 with a 4.68 ERA in six career starts against the Blue Jays, including a 1-1 mark with a 7.20 ERA in two outings this season. He also won at Toronto in Game 1 of a 2022 AL wild-card series, when he threw 7 1/3 inning shutout innings.
The bullpen options behind Castillo could include Mariners ace Bryan Woo. The team leader with 15 wins and a 2.94 ERA in the regular season, Woo has been sidelined since mid-September due to an inflamed pectoral muscle.
The Mariners left him off the AL Division Series roster but added him back for the ALCS, though he has yet to pitch. Woo threw batting practice on Monday, then sat in the bullpen during the Wednesday game.
“A good chance for him tonight to just get out there and get acclimated in case that’s a place where he comes out of later in the series,” Seattle manager Dan Wilson said. “So a chance to just get comfortable out there and see what it’s like. So that’s really what it was about tonight for Bryan.”
–Gene Warnick, Field Level Media
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