Teammates and Rivals: Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander Cross Paths Once Again
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They have been teammates.
They have been rivals.
They have never been particularly close, except on the all-time strikeout list.
Which brings us to this weekend.
Justin Verlander has already announced that Saturday's start will be the last of his storied career. Max Scherzer has left the door ajar for a return, saying he will have more to share in the coming days.
But for those playing Clue, Professor Scherzer, with the baseball at Rogers Center on Sunday, makes a pretty good guess that it will be the last start of his fabled career.
If he were going to pitch next year, he also wouldn't need to pitch on three days' rest to try to catch and pass Justin Verlander for 8th place on the all-time strikeout list.
They are the two best pitchers of their generation. Their careers have converged and diverged, and now will intersect again this weekend.
Both are, no doubt, first-ballot Hall of Famers. That part is easy.
Their personal dynamics have been more complicated.
They'll pitch this weekend, less than a four-hour drive apart. Their relationship has been far more distant.
Justin pitches in Detroit today.
Don't expect him to come watch Max pitch in Toronto tomorrow.
A Big Weekend for Both
Both men have pushed back on the narrative that they are trying to one-up each other on the all-time strikeout list.
It is easy to believe that, for Verlander, pitching one last time in front of the Tiger faithful is far more motivating than remaining atop Scherzer on the strikeout chart.
He spent the first thirteen years of his career in Detroit. He pitched 14 seasons in Detroit and won 183 games.
As a Tiger, he won the Holy Trinity of baseball hardware - Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP.
He won Rookie of the Year after leading the Tigers' shocking turnaround from a 91-loss team in 2005 to a 2006 American League pennant. In 2011, he was the last American League pitcher to win both the Cy Young and the MVP in the same year, leading the American League with 24 wins and 250 strikeouts.
He met his supermodel wife, Michigan native Kate Upton, while with the Tigers. Their seven-year-old daughter, Genevieve, threw out the first pitch Friday night in Detroit, with Justin catching. Being a Verlander, she threw a perfect strike.
Verlander saluted the fans one last time and gave an emotional speech, saying he had always hoped to return to Detroit to finish his career where it began.
Scherzer has spent just two of his 19 years in Toronto and has notched just eight of his 224 career wins as a Blue Jay. He may well be fond of Toronto, and Blue Jays fans certainly appreciate his brilliant career, his playoff win in the ALCS, his performance in Game 7 of the World Series, his resilience in pitching this year and his turn back the clock performance last month.
But the bond between city and team pales in comparison to Verlander's with Detroit. So I'm skeptical he is motivated to pitch on three days' rest to start again in front of the fans in Toronto; I think it is more about one-upping Verlander.
After all, there is a history.
Teammates and Rivals in Detroit (2010-2014)
When Scherzer was traded from Arizona to Detroit in 2009 as part of a three-way deal, Verlander was already the established ace of the Tigers. He had won 65 games over four seasons in Detroit and was already a two-time All-Star who had finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting in 2009.
Scherzer arrived in Motown with a 9-15 record.
Dave Dombrowski told Newsday's Tim Healey in December 2022 that the two "butted heads" in Detroit, while others have described the relationship as strained.
Dombrowski added that he saw it more along the lines of the two fierce competitors trying to one-up each other than as animosity, but he noted they didn't hang out socially and certainly weren't "best buddies."
By definition, there can only be one alpha. But neither Scherzer nor Velander would ever be described as betas, so the two rivals vied for the role of top dog.
Back and forth they went.
In 2012, they finished 1st and 2nd in the American League in strikeouts with Verlander topping Scherzer 239 to 231.
In 2013, Scherzer went 21-3 with a 2.90 ERA and 240 strikeouts, while Verlander had a "down year," going 13-12 with a 3.46 ERA and 217 strikeouts. Jim Leyland gave the ball to Scherzer for Game 1 of the Tigers ALDS Series.
The following spring, new manager Brad Ausmus gave the nod to the longer-tenured Verlander for his seventh consecutive Opening Day start, making Scherzer the first Cy Young Award winner in eight years not to start on Opening Day.
Yet the two would also work in combination. In the 2013 ALDS, Scherzer was supposed to start a deciding Game 5 if the Tigers beat Oakland in Game 4.
Instead, Leyland called on him in relief in Game 4 to help save the Tigers' season. He escaped a bases-loaded no-out jam in the bottom of the eighth to preserve a one-run lead.
Two days later in Game 5, Verlander no-hit the A's for 6 2/3 innings and pitched eight shutout innings in Detroit's series-clinching 3-0 victory.
Going Their Separate Ways (2015 - 2022)
Scherzer left Detroit as a free agent after the 2014 season and signed a seven-year, $210M contract with the Nationals. In his first five years in Washington, he won two Cy Young Awards and finished 2nd, 3rd, and 5th in the other years.
The Tigers traded Verlander to Houston at the 2017 deadline. He went 5-0 with a 1.06 ERA for Houston to close the regular season, and then went 4-1 with a 2.21 ERA in the postseason, including a complete-game, 13-strikeout gem versus the Yankees in the ALCS.
From 2015-2018, Scherzer pitched in four postseason games with Washington, and the Nationals lost all of them, with Scherzer taking the loss in two of them.
In 2019, though, the tables turned. Scherzer won all three of his decisions, added a hold, and pitched five innings of two-run ball in the Nationals' Game 7 victory over the Astros.
Before the series, Scherzer credited Verlander with helping him learn how to attack hitters and prepare to take the ball every fifth day. Verlander was more guarded, noting on-field similarities and praising Scherzer's competitiveness, but also pointing out differences in how they handled things off the field.
Verlander would add another World Series ring to his collection as part of the Astros World Series Champion team in 2022.
Together Again in the Big Apple (2023)
The two were reunited with the Mets in 2023, both signing contracts with a co-record-setting $43.33M average annual value, though Scherzer's was for three years versus Verlander's two. They made a deliberate effort to reset their relationship after the tension in Detroit, working out together in the offseason and getting lunch together.
They were both now fathers. They found some points of connection, but were still not particularly close, and the Mets reunion was short-lived when the stumbling Mets dealt them both away to the Rangers and Astros, respectively, days before the trade deadline.
Scherzer would get his second career ring with the Rangers, falling just short last year of a third with Toronto.
The Stuff of Legends
This weekend their careers intersect again, with Verlander making his final start and Scherzer quite likely doing the same.
If it is indeed the last start of both of their legendary careers, though, they will very likely meet at least one more time.
The projected date and time will be July 25, 2032, at 1:30 PM.
The place will be Cooperstown.
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Adam Steinmetz writes about the Toronto Blue Jays for On SI. Adam is also the editor and publisher of the Boston Sunday Sports Section, a weekly digital publication covering the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins. A two-time winner of the Best Collegiate Sports Writer award in Philadelphia, he began his career with freelance work for The Philadelphia Daily News and The Palm Beach Post before building a successful career outside of journalism. He returned to sports writing last year, contributing to Pitcher List—including coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays—before launching Authorenticity on Substack, where he explores the human stories within baseball. The Boston Sunday Sports Section is his most ambitious project — the thinking fan’s modern Sunday Sports Section focused on the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins.