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Max Scherzer knew this was a possibility, and now he’s sidelined for the foreseeable future.
Already dealing with a thumb injury that he said could “blow up fast” and “lead to a lot of other things,” the 40-year-old was placed on the 15-day injured list on Sunday with right thumb inflammation after he left his debut start with the Blue Jays on Saturday with right lat soreness.
Scherzer lasted three innings and 45 pitches and will be visiting a hand specialist in the U.S. on Monday.
“This is 100 percent related to the thumb,” Scherzer said Saturday of his back issue. “My shoulder — everything is compensating because of the thumb. The thumb is slightly better, but I still have discomfort in there. Even though I was kind of able to grip the ball a little bit better today, I still have discomfort in my thumb, and my whole arm is making adjustments because of that. That’s just a recipe for disaster.”
Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young winner, said he first felt the lat issue while he was warming up before the game.
“I could tell my lat was off. My lat was tight during warmups. Kind of been battling the last couple of days, I’ve been noticing my lat being a little bit more tight than usual,” Scherzer said.
He informed the coaching staff before the start that his lat was sore but was trying to push through it and spare the bullpen.
“After that third inning, I could just kind of tell we were in imminent danger,” Scherzer added.
Last weekend, Scherzer told The Athletic that his thumb issue was “a little thing that’s a big thing,” noting the Blue Jays were aware of it before they signed him to a one-year, $15.5 million contract.
“I don’t have the answers,” he told the outlet. “From the very beginning, even in free agency, I said, ‘The only thing that’s holding me back long-term here is the thumb. If you’re going to sign me, everything else is good on me. The back is good. The only issue is my thumb.’
“I thought I had addressed it, I thought I did enough grip-strength work to nip it in the bud that we weren’t going to have it. Unfortunately, it showed back up here in spring training. Everybody’s trying to figure out how to manage this, how to get around this, how to overcome this.”
