Scherzer vs. Kershaw: A rare showdown between 3,000-strikeout pitchers

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Max Scherzer vs. Clayton Kershaw sounds like an enticing postseason matchup in October. Fans won’t have to wait that long. The likely Hall of Famers square off Friday in a rare contest between the most recent members of baseball’s 3,000-strikeout club.

“You probably aren’t going to see that very often these days,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I have a lot of respect for Max. It’ll be good to see him and hopefully we can have our way with him.”

Scherzer is, alongside his left-handed opponent, perhaps one of this generation’s greatest pitchers. He and Kershaw have each won World Series titles and are three-time Cy Young Award winners. Scherzer, 41, is an eight-time All-Star, while the 37-year-old Kershaw has 11 All-Star appearances, including this year as a Legend Pick by Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Scherzer became the 19th member of the 3,000-strikeout club while pitching for the Dodgers in September 2021. Kershaw joined him as the 20th member last month. The duo, along with Justin Verlander, are the only active pitchers to reach the 3,000-strikeout mark.

“I loved playing with him. I love competing against him. I have all the respect in the world for him,” Scherzer said from Colorado, where the Toronto Blue Jays earned a sweep this week. “We’ve been pitching for so long, you don’t know how many more chances you are going to get at this, to face somebody of his ilk. This is what you dream of, facing the best. It should be a lot of fun.”

But such a high-stakes duel doesn’t always live up to the anticipation.

In September 2023, Scherzer and Verlander squared off for the first time in a matchup of 200-game winners. Scherzer, then with Texas, didn’t make it to the fourth inning. Verlander, also a three-time Cy Young Award winner who was then with Houston, scattered six hits over seven innings.

Rookie left-hander Jack Dreyer has a locker just a few feet from Kershaw’s in the Dodgers clubhouse. He also played against Scherzer last season in a rehab outing.

“The way they go about their business is what separates them. To an extent there’s the talent, but they also just work harder than everybody else, especially Kersh,” Dreyer said. “It’s not always easy to listen to guys if they’re talking to you about how to get better but you don’t see them doing it. With him, it’s just so easy because I see him working his butt off every single day. He’s the easiest guy in the world to learn from.”

Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly will be watching Scherzer and Kershaw, who he managed in LA from 2011-15.

“They work. They are detailed in what they want to do,” Mattingly said in Colorado.

Mattingly credits then-Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt for helping Kershaw develop a slider to add to the primary fastball-changeup mix that he used early in his 18-year career.

“Just that two-pitch combo is tough. Umps miss that curveball because it is big. So they’d ‘ball’ it on him,” Mattingly said. “Then he came with the slider, which really changed him, being able to get down under the right-hander. Speed them up a little bit, and then that curveball was kind of a putaway when he had that going.”

Friday’s series opener at Dodger Stadium is a matchup of division leaders. The Blue Jays lead the AL East by four games over Boston. The Dodgers’ NL West lead over San Diego has shriveled to two.

And that’s ultimately what matters to Scherzer.

“If you start putting the importance on this matchup with them and put your attention toward this, you are going to overlook some other things,” he said. “They won the World Series last year. They’re the champs. You want a shot at the champs. You want to beat them. That’s what this game is about.”