Max Scherzer is a historically great pitcher, and few days exemplified that like Sunday.
The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher entered a small club by throwing his 3,000th career strikeout and entered an even smaller club with his third career immaculate inning in one start against the the San Diego Padres.
The immaculate inning came in the second inning:
The 3,000th strikeout came three innings later:
Scherzer, one of the biggest acquisitions at this year’s trade deadline, is the 19th player to ever reach the 3,000-strikeout record, the most recent player before him being his former teammate Justin Verlander. Per MLB Stats, Scherzer is the second fastest to reach the mark by innings, behind only Randy Johnson.
He is also one of three players to throw three immaculate innings, the other two being Sandy Koufax and Chris Sale, who joined Koufax in the previously solitary club earlier this season.
That all adds to what was already a historically impressive resume for Scherzer, especially when it comes to strikeouts. The man already has three Cy Young Awards, eight All-Star selections, two no-hitters (one of which was infuriatingly close to a perfect game), a 20-strikeout game and three strikeout titles.
Scherzer hasn’t slowed down in 2021 at the age of 37, either. He entered Sunday as a legitimate contender for his fourth Cy Young Award with a 2.28 ERA, 210 strikeouts and an NL-best 0.857 WHIP in 154 innings for the Dodgers and Washington Nationals.