SEATTLE — Mad Max nearly had a month to fume, seethe and boil as he waited for his October opportunity.
Finally given the ball in the playoffs, he shut down the Seattle Mariners — and his own manager, too.
A fiery Scherzer turned back the clock with his vintage pitching performance and Andrés Giménez homered and drove in four runs as the Toronto Blue Jays beat Seattle 8-2 to even the American League Championship Series at two games apiece.
The 41-year-old Scherzer, left off the Division Series roster against the New York Yankees while dealing with neck pain, showed he still had plenty left in the tank by allowing two runs in 5 2/3 innings.
“This is what you play for,” Scherzer said. “You work so hard the whole year, make all the sacrifices, put all the work in to get to this moment to have these types of moments to be able to win in the postseason.”
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his fifth playoff homer for the Blue Jays, who have outscored the Mariners 21-6 in Seattle after losing the first two games at home.
Game 5 in the best-of-seven series has Kevin Gausman scheduled to start for Toronto against Game 1 winner Bryce Miller.
Scherzer earned his eighth postseason win and first since the 2019 World Series for Washington against Houston. Making his 500th major league start, regular season and postseason combined, he became the oldest pitcher to start a postseason game since Jamie Moyer was 45 with the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2008 World Series.
Moyer, who spent 11 years with the Mariners from 1996-2006, threw out the ceremonial first pitch Thursday.
Scherzer yielded three hits, one of which was a solo home run by Josh Naylor in the second inning. But the veteran right-hander settled in from there, even picking a runner off first base for the first time since 2013, and was not removed until manager John Schneider’s second mound visit.
With two outs in the fifth, Schneider approached Scherzer on the field and the three-time Cy Young Award winner told his skipper — in no uncertain terms — he had no interest in coming out of the game at that point.
“I thought he was going to kill me. It was great. He locked eyes with me, both colors, as I walked out,” Schneider said with a smile. “He has this Mad Max persona, but he backed it up tonight.”
Scherzer said he was busy thinking about the sequence of pitches he wanted to throw to Randy Arozarena.
“And all of a sudden I see Schneids coming out and it kind of caught me off guard,” Scherzer explained. “That’s just one of those moments where I know I wanted the ball. I knew the situation of the game. I wanted the ball and I basically told him that in a little bit different language.”
Schneider left Scherzer in and the eight-time All-Star promptly struck out Arozarena swinging at a curveball.
“When a Hall of Famer like this tells you he’s good, you ought to leave him in the game,” Guerrero said. “And he showed he’s good.”
It was one of five strikeouts for Scherzer, who pounded his glove in excitement.
“I tried to stay away from him,” teammate George Springer said. “You don’t really want to get in Max’s way, so you kind of just let Max be Max. It was entertaining, for sure.”
Said Schneider: “I’ve been waiting for that all year, for Max to yell at me on the mound. I think at that point there’s numbers, there’s projections, there’s strategy, and there’s people. So I was trusting people.”
The Blue Jays’ offense, meanwhile, picked up where it left off after scoring 13 runs in Game 3. Giménez hit a two-run homer in the third inning for the second consecutive day, this one off starter Luis Castillo to give Toronto a lead it didn’t relinquish. The Blue Jays tacked on another run in the inning when reliever Gabe Speier walked in a run.
Toronto added to its advantage in the fourth on an RBI double from Springer, who came around to score on a wild pitch by Matt Brash. Guerrero, who singled earlier in the game, smacked an opposite-field homer to right in the seventh off Eduard Bazardo.
Guerrero leads the majors with five homers in these playoffs — breaking the Blue Jays record for one postseason that he had shared with José Bautista (2015).
Giménez provided more insurance in the eighth with a two-run single up the middle that deflected off reliever Emerson Hancock’s glove.
Up next
Miller has a 2.61 ERA in two playoff starts this October while Gausman, a two-time All-Star, is 1-3 with a 4.14 ERA in 10 career postseason games.
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