TORONTO — At each step since Max Scherzer’s thumb issues first flared up again some three weeks ago, good day or bad, the veteran right-hander has made it clear that the problem was far from resolved.
Exactly one week ago, for instance, when he threw 62 pitches over four shutout innings against the Minnesota Twins in his final spring start, topping out at 94.7 m.p.h. with a fastball that sat 93.3, he stressed that “everybody's trying to figure out how to manage this.”
During the Toronto Blue Jays’ workout Wednesday ahead of opening day, he was even more blunt, saying, “I'm still going through it,” forcing him to “change everything up, change all the treatment on it, I am having to back up bullpens, having to change how I throw. Heck, even opening a water bottle, I have to do that left-handed.”
Even more ominously, he later added: “How you grip the ball is critical to your arm health. My arm is built to hold a baseball a certain way, squeeze the ball a certain way. When that's affected, the rest of your arm is picking up slack because of the lack of strength that you have in your thumb. … It affects your whole arm ... all the way into even your shoulder, into the lat, too.”
Little surprise, then, that his much-anticipated Blue Jays debut was cut short Saturday after just three innings. Right lat soreness that he said “is 100 per cent related to the thumb," forcing him from what finished as a 9-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
The severity of the injury wasn’t immediately clear, but the fallout is likely to be significant. Scherzer’s turn next comes up Friday against the New York Mets in their home opener, but he said he has to get the thumb “100 per cent before I pitch again.”
If that means a stint on the injured list, the Blue Jays could push Yariel Rodriguez back into the rotation and backfill for length in the bullpen with someone like Eric Lauer or Easton Lucas. There’s time to sort that out, but after manager John Schneider was forced to work through another five-reliever day, a fresh arm for the bullpen may very well be needed first.
Amid those deliberations, questions about why the club declined to carry versatile lefty Ryan Yarbrough — perfect for just this scenario — resurfaced as well, all of it presenting the Blue Jays their first mini-crisis of the season, a mere three games in.
“I've been dealing with this for so long that I can't pitch through this injury,” said Scherzer, who did note that his thumb had been improving. “There are so many other injuries you can pitch through. You can pitch through a lot, actually, but this thumb is absolutely critical to your arm health. …
“I'm frustrated,” he added later. “I want to pitch. I know I can pitch. I know I can throw the ball really well. Unfortunately, I've got an issue going on. It's coming from the thumb. And I've got to zero out that thumb before I pitch again.”
The ongoing uncertainty around Scherzer also underlines the risk the club took in making a $15.5-million, one-year bet on the 40-year-old, who has shown he can be effective when on the mound despite the physical issues.
That the Blue Jays found themselves in this spot was made all the more surprising as before the game, Schneider said Scherzer “has been rip-roaring ready to go the last couple of days,” quipping, “so, Mad Max engaged. He's on.”
But Scherzer said tightness lingered in the lat the past few days and again in the bullpen warming up, prompting him to warn Schneider and pitching coach Pete Walker to have a plan just in case.
He didn’t look right from the outset, his second pitch of the game a 91.6 m.p.h. fastball that Colton Cowser hammered 417 feet to centre field. Two batters later, Jordan Westburg crushed a slider that hung middle-middle 434 feet to centre.
Scherzer’s fastball velocity topped out at 93.4 — his average last time out — while he sat 92.5, but he still rallied to retire the final seven batters he faced before leaving when he felt the lat was in “imminent danger” of a more serious injury.
“I couldn't fully get through the ball. I couldn't really go after that last gear and really let the ball fly, really step on the gas," said Scherzer. "I felt like if I did that, bad things could happen. I had to back off the effort level to guard that lat. The life on your pitches comes off. I'm thinking I'm throwing sliders glove side, down away and they're staying arm side on me. Stuff like that. I'm not the same pitcher when you have to back off intensity.”
Once he left, the 4-2 lead the Blue Jays had just taken on Andres Gimenez’s two-run homer in the bottom of the third immediately unravelled before a paid attendance of 27,005. Richard Lovelady took over and went double, strikeout, hit batter, hit batter, sacrifice fly, walk and three-run double to No. 9 hitter Ramon Urias.
That put the Orioles up 6-4, before they tacked on two more against Jacob Barnes in the fifth to pad their lead and never looked back.
All of which wasted a solid day at the plate by the Blue Jays, led by the Gimenez homer plus four hits and a walk from Bo Bichette, who continues to regularly find barrels.
"The most impressive part for me is he's taking really borderline pitches and really zeroing in on a ball that he can hit hard, which I think is kind of the final step for Bo to go from great to elite," said Schneider. "It's kind of showing right now."
Not showing right now is what comes next for Scherzer, who noted that he didn’t feel a “zing” or anything like a strain in his lat, “so I feel like the lat will be OK.”
The thumb, on the other hand, remains a riddle neither he nor the Blue Jays can answer.
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