Max Scherzer hasn’t looked like Max Scherzer for most of this season. One huge reason for the New York Mets pitcher’s down year has to do with his suddenly ineffective slider.
Scherzer’s slider has been a staple pitch for the right-hander throughout his 16-year career. It’s the second-most used pitch in his arsenal behind his 4-seam fastball.
A slider from Mad Max was virtually unhittable before this season. Opponents have batted under .200 against the pitch since 2015, including a minuscule .129 batting average allowed on sliders during Scherzer’s 2017 Cy Young campaign. This season, opponents are batting .292 against Scherzer’s slider — the highest he’s ever allowed.
But on Sunday, something clicked for Scherzer.
The 8-time All-Star looked like himself again in the Mets’ 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. He allowed just one hit across seven scoreless innings. More significantly for him, he believes he’s found his slider again.
“I’ve lost a lot of sleep trying to figure out why I kept hanging those sliders,” Scherzer told reporters after the game, via Yahoo Sports’ John Harper. “I really think this is it. When you find it, you find it.”
Scherzer revealed that all the credit goes to the mud that got stuck in his cleats midway through the game. He found himself executing his slider perfectly thanks to the added weight on his left foot.
Not long after, Scherzer tested the same leg motion without the mud. It worked.
“I cleaned out the mud in the cleats after the fourth, and I went out for the fifth really focusing on really driving my left foot in the ground, more so than usual, and I started getting slider down in the zone.
“Just something that simple, that stupid. But that’s baseball. And I’m still going to hang a slider and give up a home run, but it’s the consistency of getting it down in the zone. I’m convinced I’ll have that now.”
The Mets are currently 8.5 games out of the Wild Card picture after Sunday’s win. It’s an uphill battle for New York to get back in the race, but a revitalized Scherzer could be the key to making it happen.
