BOSTON – The latest interruption in Max Scherzer’s stop-and-start season began Monday morning, when the future Hall of Famer woke up with a knot in the left side of his back. He’d thrown a bullpen the day before and felt fine, so he got some treatment on the off-day, played catch as usual on Tuesday, still felt the spasm, woke up Wednesday feeling worse and finally called it. One week after being activated, the 41-year-old was heading right back to the injured list.
“I wasn’t progressing, if anything I was going backwards,” a disappointed Scherzer said in the centre of the visiting clubhouse at Fenway Park. “I’m just not in a position to make a start.”
The injury sent the Blue Jays right back onto the roster-churn merry-go-round, with Chad Dallas, scrambled at nearly the last second from triple-A Buffalo on a day he was supposed to follow a rehabbing Shane Bieber, recalled to add some length.
In the short-term, that meant a bullpen game with Braydon Fisher serving as an opener for the fifth time, but also more flux for the days ahead, too. Bieber, who allowed five runs on seven hits and four walks with two strikeouts in five innings Wednesday afternoon versus Charlotte, is lined up and could jump into the spot when it next comes up on Monday.
From a workload and volume perspective, Bieber is there as his pitch count hit 80 while his fastball averaged 91.8 mph and held over five frames, topping out at 93. He’s due to meet the team in Chicago during this weekend’s three-game set versus the Cubs and the Blue Jays will gauge “how he feels about competing” in the majors.
Yimi Garcia, slated to appear in another rehab game Thursday to see how he feels pitching twice in three days, is also nearing a decision, and in both cases, the Blue Jays may need to risk some of their depth pitching to fit them on the roster. Given that, they’ll need to be confident both players are ready to carry some innings.
“Discount double-check, yeah,” Schneider joked. “With (Garcia), the guy’s got 10 years in, we’ll listen to him and say like, ‘Hey, at the very least, can you go every other day to start and then see where you’re at?’ The last thing we want to do is burn through guys, lose guys via waivers or something like that, that could help us and then not be sure about his availability. So we’ll make sure he’s feeling good after (Thursday), revisit it and see where we go.”
Scherzer doesn’t anticipate being out long, describing his back spasm as “a time thing … nothing more than that.” For the time being, he’ll rest, take various treatments and work to get himself right and try to get back into the mix in two weeks.
Having just built up after forearm tendinitis sidelined him for six weeks and making just one start – last week when he allowed five runs in 3.1 innings during a 7-4 loss to the Phillies – whether he can retain his volume while down is in question.
“That will be dependant on when I get back out, how quickly we can get through this and figure out what’s going to happen here next,” he explained. “Right now it’s just taking a day at a time, get rid of the spasm, get back to feeling healthy like I was. Very frustrating.”
That sums up his season, too, as he’s carrying a 10.23 ERA in six outings in which he’s twice thrown six innings and gone 3.1 innings or less in the other four. He’s also allowed nine homers in 22 innings but remains confident about his ability to perform “because my arm feels like it’s in a really great spot right now.”
“I absolutely have the utmost belief that I can be out there, I can be pitching, I can help the team win. Nothing that has happened has changed any course of that,” said Scherzer. “I’ve just got to get through this. I just have another thing I’ve got to deal with and get over. These things happen when you’re 41 years old trying to pitch. That’s the hand I’m dealt and now I’ve got to overcome it.”
