'What you dream of': Max Scherzer returns where it began − Arizona, for World Series

PHOENIX — It’s almost impossible now to imagine Max Scherzer as a 23-year-old rookie, with massive promise but lacking significant polish, wide-eyed and trying to soak up what he could from pitching masters, years before he’d become one himself.

Monday night, Scherzer, now 39, will start Game 3 of the World Series for the Texas Rangers on the same mound in which he debuted 15 years ago, the start of a Hall of Fame career that would not gain that kind of traction with an Arizona Diamondbacks franchise he’s trying to beat.

His debut came in relief, four shutout innings, a surprise in retrospect but less so when you consider the crowd Scherzer ran with then.

Helming those Diamondbacks was Brandon Webb, the reigning Cy Young Award winner who’d win 22 games in his third consecutive All-Star season. Dan Haren struck out 216 batters. Randy Johnson, still royalty in the desert, would win his 292^nd career game that season.

And there was Scherzer, less than two years removed from the University of Missouri, aiming to fit into the puzzle.

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"To be able to learn from and watch these guys go about their business, I'm as lucky as there could be to have that be your teammates when you first break into the league," Scherzer said Sunday at Chase Field, where the World Series resumes with the Rangers and Diamondbacks tied, 1-1. "A lot of it was kind of the little nuances of the game that you take from − 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.

"I actually wish I could circle back with those guys and compare notes now. When you're a rookie you don't understand everything you can do.

"But once you get some years under your belt, I feel like the conversations would be way different today than they were back then."

You’d think. Scherzer has three Cy Young Awards of his own, 214 career wins, a World Series championship won with Washington in 2019, and is arguably the best right-handed pitcher of his generation.

Yet this game is quick to remind of its ability to humble. Scherzer spent just two years with the Diamondbacks, starting 37 games, striking out 240 batters in 226 ⅓ innings, but lacking the peerless command that he’d soon develop.

Arizona didn’t wait for that. In December 2009, Scherzer was traded in a relatively epic three-team deal that sent Scherzer and Austin Jackson to Detroit, outfielder Curtis Granderson from the Tigers to the Yankees and pitchers Ian Kennedy and Edwin Jackson to Arizona.

A bit jarring for a 25 year old.

"It’s the business of the game," he says. "At any point in time, you can be traded. Especially when you don't have any no-trade clause protection. And so I get it: GMs and front offices, they're under tremendous amount of pressures to win 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."

The rest is history: Scherzer would soon win 16 games for the 2012 Tigers, earning his first World Series trip. He’d earn more than $300 million in salary, a legend in Detroit and Washington and now more a mercenary, pitching the New York Mets into the 2022 playoffs before things soured this year and he accepted a trade to the Rangers.

The childlike glee of an opportunity like Monday’s Game 3 never changes.

"This is what you dream of when you're a kid," says Scherzer. "When you're a kid you dream of hitting in the World Series, pitching in the World Series. You watched your idols do this in all the big games, and to be able to live out your dreams.

"So for me, my third World Series, this is crazy to say it's my third World Series, but here I have such another opportunity to live out my dream."

It comes under less than ideal conditions. Scherzer missed a month with a teres muscle strain in his throwing shoulder, a period covering the end of the regular season and the first two playoff rounds.

The return has been something of a grind: Scherzer gave up five runs in four innings of a Game 3 ALCS loss to Houston, then was hooked after 2 ⅔ innings of Game 7 when he courted more trouble. The Rangers survived that game to reach the World Series, but Scherzer threw just 44 pitches (he threw 63 in his return), leaving the length he can provide Texas an open question.

The Diamondbacks are another problem, banging out 24 hits and scoring 16 runs in the first two games, a ninth-inning Corey Seager home run the only barrier separating Arizona from a 2-0 Series advantage.

Let the adrenaline flow.

"You've got to match the moment," says Scherzer, who will be making his 24^th career playoff start and fourth World Series start. "A lot of times the notion out there is, kind of be subdued because the moment is so big. That's kind of the opposite how I need to think.

"This is a big game. Obviously, you're playing for the World Series. You've got to match that."