The day after it started Max Scherzer comes to the ballpark early to do what fewer and fewer pitchers do these days: he runs.
The veteran right-hander runs from penalty post to penalty post along the outfield wall. When he was with MetzHe was sometimes seen running around Citi Field, past the entrance to the Jackie Robinson Rotunda and the entrance to Shea Stadium before passing under the subway tracks, turning left onto Roosevelt Avenue before heading back to the clubhouse on Seaver Way.
This is old school.
This is how pitchers have been recovering from starts for years, trying to wash away the accumulated lactic acid from their prized pitching arms. Pitchers are now training explosive movements that can better simulate sharp movements on the mound. After the start, they basically stopped using foul floors.
But not Scherzer. The 41-year-old Toronto Blue Jays starter has retained some of his old-school tradition while still adapting to younger, stronger hitters since his major league debut in 2008.
In a postseason filled with pitching stars doing things to baseball that few could have imagined, two World Series pitchers are in a category of their own. Scherzer and Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw are not only first-ballot Hall of Famers, they are the last in a generation of truly great aces.
It's not that there aren't aces in baseball anymore. On the contrary, in terms of pure skill and such, pitching may be better now than ever, and the World Series will only highlight that.
Left-hander Blake Snell, owner of a 0.86 postseason ERA and two Cy Young Awards, will start Game 1 for the Dodgers, and rookie flamethrower Trey Yesavage will face the Blue Jays in front of a home crowd at Rogers Center. There's Kevin Gausman and Shane Bieber of Toronto, and Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers. Not to mention Shohei Ohtani, who also belongs in his own category, but for different, more unicorn reasons.
But what we call an “ace” in 2025 is very different from what it was when Scherzer and Kershaw were drafted in 2006. At the time, frontline players were consistently making 30 starts and throwing 200 innings. They were required to pitch seven innings every five days and make over 100 pitches. In today's game, pitchers throw fewer pitches, exerting maximum effort for a shorter time to maintain velocity.
Since 2014, the quality of starts has been declining. That year, six teams got 100 or more points from their starting lineup. There were two in 2015 and two in 2016. Since then, no staff has had 100 or more people. The Philadelphia Phillies led the league with just 84 hits this season.
With an epidemic of elbow injuries, front office employees have to be careful with their weapons. Tommy John surgery no longer seems like a matter of if, it's almost a matter of when.
Only three active pitchers have won more than 200 games: Scherzer, Kershaw and Justin Verlander. Yankees ace Gerrit Cole ranks fourth on the MLB active leaderboard with 153 wins. Pitcher wins may not be as valuable as they used to be, but we may not see another 300-game winner for a long time—if ever.
Randy Johnson was the last pitcher to win 300 games, doing so in 2009 at age 38, a year older than Kershaw this season.
This year, two World Series pitchers won nine Cy Young Awards, three each from Kershaw and Scherzer. Their careers were defined by dominance from the start.
Watching them deliver is like watching an artist work on a canvas. Kershaw paints with consistent strokes, while Scherzer is a little more like Jackson Pollock with his brutal style. However, it was this pitch that was responsible for the neck injuries and injuries that Scherzer faced throughout his career. He missed the start of the 2019 World Series with neck and back spasms and was sidelined from the start of the 2023 World Series with a back strain. However, his teams won both of those series.
Kershaw has already announced his retirement at the end of the season. He's had shoulder surgery, one as recently as last fall, a knee injury, a bone spur on his toe and pelvic inflammation. Age comes to all of us.
That includes many of their peers, such as Tim Lincecum, another 2006 draftee, and Lincecum's former San Francisco Giants teammate Madison Bumgarner. They are Felix Hernandez, Adam Wainwright, Corey Kluber, CC Sabathia and Scherzer's former Washington Nationals teammate Stephen Strasburg.
DeGrom, Yu Darvish, Zack Wheeler, Nathan Eovaldi and Chris Sale, all 35 or older, are still hanging in there, but for how long? Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal are ushering in a new generation of aces. They have exceptional ability and throw exceptionally hard. Skubal has come close to throwing 200 innings twice, so perhaps there is hope for starting to produce pitches in the future after all.
Still, seeing Scherzer and Kershaw play each other in the World Series is almost poetic. These are two of the best projects to ever do it, marking the end of an era of early pitching that we may never see again.
