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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: NATIONALS VS CARDINALS

October 11, 2019

Max Scherzer

St. Louis, Missouri - pregame 1

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Can you describe, you talked about it before, but your Busch Stadium experiences as a kid, with your dad, and your Cardinal moments.
MAX SCHERZER: Yeah, grew up here, but at this point in time really doesn't mean anything because I got a bigger task at hand and that's to go out here and win it for the Nats. So that's where my mind's at.

Q. In the last series did a lot of creative things with the bullpen, you lobbied for innings often because you knew you could come out of the pen, do you expect in this series to take your start day and probably not do that as much?
MAX SCHERZER: Yeah, being in the previous postseasons where that happens in the 5-game series, yeah, you got to get creative and you got to take the ball at every single chance you can get. In the 7-game series, the way you're set up, this is more like the regular season. You can't be coming out of the pen in the same form or fashion unless you're not going to be making your start. So for me it's probably just pitch Game 2 and then wait for my next start.

Q. Along those lines, top of the 10th the other night you were in the dugout. Bottom of the 10th all of a sudden you're in the bullpen, you're storming out of there. How did that come about and what was your intention of going down there?
MAX SCHERZER: Actually, when I played catch that day I mean I went in with a zero percent chance I was going to feel good, knowing that the previous day on the flight out to Los Angeles I didn't feel good at all. And when I played catch I didn't have any red flags through the elbow, the shoulder, and the back, three main areas where I would be really concerned about for injury. Those actually felt pretty good.

So talking with Menhart and kind of thinking here like, hey, if things got crazy here, I might have a couple batters in me. I might be able to give you a couple batters. And it's Game 5. Everything's on the line. Obviously you wanted to use everybody else in the pen, but at that point if there was ever a situation where you needed to get an out or two I said that I had at least a couple batters in me.

So we had confidence in Doo but it was one of those all bets are off in Game 5 when it's win or go home.

Q. You would have been almost two years with Soto now. Is there one thing that you if somebody walked up to you and said what's the most impressive thing he does as a 19- or 20-year-old what might it be?
MAX SCHERZER: That's a good question. I don't know, because the way he plays the game, he plays the game with energy, he understands the game at a really high level. Has a very good baseball IQ and really has a really, really good hitter's IQ. Really understands what he's trying to do at the plate, able to make adjustments, able to take on the data, which is I think rare because, typically, you see it with younger players and I can speak to this. Just when you're young and trying to solidify yourself, you're trying to solidify yourself in the baseball standards, but to be able to take on the data is a whole different ball game. And the fact that you can do both, especially when you're young, that really is a testament to how smart he is and really what he can do at the plate.

Q. Because you just faced this lineup maybe like a month ago, do you look at that start at all or is the postseason just a completely different animal and you approach it that way?
MAX SCHERZER: You take a look at it, you know what's going on, it's fresh in my mind of what pitches they can hit. And watching that series of how they handled the bat and how to navigate their lineup, it's going to be a tough fight, I know that.

At the same time, this is the postseason, this the NLCS, you can almost, in some regards, almost throw it out the window because everybody's playing at a higher level. I can sit here and say that, like, I knew the Brewers lineup but the Brewers came out with a whole different approach and like that was a completely different team. So there's something to it but there's not a lot to it.

Q. For you and just this team, this is the first time you guys have made it this far, do you need to keep your emotions in extra check that you guys have the excitement of getting to this point?
MAX SCHERZER: No, we play the game with emotions. We play with fun. We have a -- our clubhouse is great. We embrace it, we love it. I think what you're trying to get to is not get emotional, that we got, where you get out of hand and you're living in the past. No, we're focused on the future here, what we can do. We realize the opponent that we're facing in the Cardinals and that they're a tough team and they just got through a tough series as well. And this is the playoffs, anything can happen. So it's going to be a fun matchup. This is baseball at its finest.

Q. Acknowledging that you're here on a business trip to pitch and win ball games, can you describe how cool it will be to do so in front of family, old Parkway Central buddies, maybe people that knew you from growing up and just share the experience with everybody?
MAX SCHERZER: It will be just some friends that will be able to come to the game to see it. Otherwise everybody is watching on TV anyways. So it makes it easier for my parents to travel, they're here.

Q. Knowing Adam as long as you have, and watched him pitch maybe even borrowed from him, I wonder if you have some appreciation for what he's done this season, sort of re-inventing himself.
MAX SCHERZER: Yeah, it's awesome watching him from afar. I just know how much of a competitor he is and that's what he goes out there and does, he tries to find a way to win in every single way he can. I pitched against him in spring trainings here and in games and obviously in September, and you just know he's going to bring everything he's got. Nothing will be different facing him tomorrow. That's what makes this game fun is facing these great guys who can go out there and compete and lay it on the line like that, and he's obviously one of them. He's done it in the postseason and he's been a postseason Ace.

Q. In all your postseason appearances your fastball's been up a few ticks over the regular season. Is that adrenaline from the playoffs or not holding back as much because the season's almost over?
MAX SCHERZER: Yeah, it's just adrenaline in the moment, especially Wild Card, when it's a do or die it's literally every pitch you got one game to decide everything going into it. And I was on seven days' rest going into that. So, yeah, that's just the product of playing in the postseason sometimes. So I feel healthy, feel great, really recovered off of these injuries that I had in the middle of the year and made the progression back kind of all the way through September to get to this point where I really feel good about myself and what I can do with the baseball.

Q. Along those lines, October's kind of a sprint, but at the same time you could make up to a half dozen starts by the time this thing is over with. How do you kind of balance the urgency of every pitch, every game versus knowing you might be in this for the long haul a couple more weeks?
MAX SCHERZER: I don't know, don't get too far ahead of yourself and just realize you got everything on the line every single time you go out there. Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

Q. There's been such a huge emphasis on bullpens the last few postseasons. Why do you think this postseason we have seen so many starters being able to go deep and managers letting them get up to 120, 125 pitches in starts?
MAX SCHERZER: I don't know. I think it was just the guys that are doing it. Next year it will be the bullpens. Year after that it will be starters. It's just kind of, there's so many ways to win baseball games through pitching. And we have seen it over the years, of how teams have deployed pitching staffs in the postseasons. There's no one way to do it.

And so it's really about what you got that day. I really kind of see it that way, is whatever your team, whatever your pitching staff has, whatever starter has. There's times where starters are going, like in the NLDS and the ALDS, there's times where guys are pitching on where, like for me I relieved in Game 2 and going into Game 4 that was the weirdest thing for me to ever do, to be pitching like that and knowing how to pitch.

So you just kind of got to throw everything out the window and just realize, just go a hundred percent, give it whatever you got, and everybody's on the same program.

Q. You were teammates with Aníbal in Detroit. What do you see today from him compared to then?
MAX SCHERZER: Oh, so much of the same. The biggest thing is that he's been able to add a cutter. The way he can pitch with the cutter to both righties and lefties, that's the biggest thing he's added since I played with him. But his ability to change speeds, it's probably one of the best in the game. The way he can change speeds, even on his changeup, he can change speeds, I mean, he can slow it all the way down, we call it the butterfly, he can throw a butterfly in there and you get guys just every hitter just waves at it.

So that's what makes him such a treat to watch, is that I really feel like every pitcher can learn from him because of the way he puts his pitches together and the way he can change speeds.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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