Jordan HammMax Scherzer will take the mound at Chase Field on Monday as a three-time Cy Young Award winner and one of the best pitchers in all of baseball.
The first time he stepped foot in that building, he was a highly-touted rookie with loads of potential. He quickly started taking notes from elite starters Brandon Webb, Dan Haren and Randy Johnson when he joined the Diamondbacks in 2008.
Some of those lessons he learned are still being used today.
“A lot of it was kind of the little nuances of the game that you kind of take from,” Scherzer said. “I still remember to this day from Dan and obviously Randy, and how Webby pitched with his sinker/change-up, how that was really effective for him.”
But Scherzer’s time with the Diamondbacks was not long. He pitched well over the course of the 2008 & 2009 seasons, but his throwing motion concerned some because it could put stress on his shoulder and lead to serious injuries. In December 2009, Scherzer was traded to the Detroit Tigers in a three-team trade that sent starters Ian Kennedy and Edwin Jackson to Arizona.
Kennedy became the ace of a Diamondbacks team that made it to the postseason in 2011, and was one of the most reliable starters in Diamondbacks history.
Scherzer made adjustments to his throwing motion and hit a whole different stratosphere in his time with the Tigers, Nationals, Dodgers, Mets and now Rangers, earning eight All-Star nods over the course of his 16-year carrer.
That trade was also a chance for Scherzer to see firsthand what the business of baseball looks like.
“At any point in time, you can be traded. Especially when you don’t have any no-trade clause protection,” Scherzer said. “And so I get it: GMs and front offices, they’re under tremendous amount of pressures to win and how they’re going to do it and how to construct the rosters and good players get traded all the time.
“So you don’t necessarily take the emotion of the team that traded you away, you look at the next team and you say, this team’s trading for me and this is a team that wants me.”
Scherzer’s time in Arizona was an education off the field. On Monday, he’ll try to use those lessons against his original club on the biggest stage of all.
