How Scherzer can dominate in Texas

If Max Scherzer is Max Scherzer, he's the ace the Rangers need for their postseason push.

But this season, Scherzer hasn't always been Scherzer, not the one we're used to seeing year in and year out. His 2023 season has been up-and-down in a highly un-Scherzer-like fashion.

This is what he can do to dominate again in Texas, after his stunning trade from the Mets three days before Tuesday's Trade Deadline.

Scherzer's actually been telling us about his two biggest problems for months: uncharacteristically hanging his slider, and uncharacteristically failing to put hitters away. And the guy knows what he's talking about.

Here are the two ways Scherzer, who makes his Rangers debut on Thursday, can get his old groove back with his new team -- based on his own words.

1) Keep his slider sharp

"Every time I was throwing my slider, it was hanging … I can’t believe I was hanging that many sliders in all those situations." -- Scherzer on June 13, after giving up six runs and two home runs -- both on sliders -- against the Yankees

Scherzer has surrendered nine home runs on sliders this season, more than he's allowed in any full season of his career. He allowed zero home runs on sliders in all of 2022.

Four of those nine homers have been on sliders that were middle-middle in the strike zone. Eight of the nine have been on sliders that were in the upper two thirds of the zone -- not where you want to leave a breaking pitch.

Scherzer's spotty slider command has led to extremely un-Scherzer-like results. Here's how his slider numbers look in 2023 compared to every other season of the Statcast era.

2015-22: .165 BA/.259 SLG, 48.0% whiff rate, 40.8% strikeout rate
2023: .262 BA/.595 SLG, 34.3% whiff rate, 28.2% strikeout rate

You can also see what's different in the shape of Scherzer's slider. When he loses command of the slider, it helicopters out of his hand, resulting in a slower, loopier pitch that's gotten crushed.

Scherzer's slider metrics

2015-22: 85.8 mph / 34.7 inches of drop / 3.3 inches of break
2023: 83.8 mph / 37.5 inches of drop / 3.4 inches of break

For Scherzer, that increase in the total vertical movement of his slider is not good. He wants to throw a power slider with tight break, and instead, he's getting a floaty slider with loopy break. Scherzer's slider is at its best when it's harder and sharper.

But the good sign: Scherzer thinks he's getting his old slider back -- and the data backs him up.

Three starts ago against the Dodgers, he applied a mid-game mechanical fix to drive his slider down to the bottom of the strike zone: driving his left foot down hard into the mound during his delivery.

"I was like, 'Could it really be this simple?'" Scherzer said after that game. "I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. Because the whole time, I keep thinking in my head that I'm executing these things down and away, and they're hanging."

Over his two starts since, Scherzer's slider has looked like a different pitch. Eighty percent of his sliders have gotten to the bottom third of the zone or lower -- compared to just 69% in his prior starts this season -- and he's generated a 52.9% whiff rate on his slider in the process.

And in Scherzer's most recent outing, his slider averaged a season-high 85 mph, with only 35.4 inches of drop, finally resembling like the sharp Scherzer slider we know.

Here's what the difference looks like in action: a hanging Scherzer slider crushed for a home run by Giancarlo Stanton in his June 13 start, vs. a sharp slider for a swing-and-miss in his last start.

"I've been throwing this slider for a really long time and had a lot of success on it," Scherzer said after finding his fix. "You don't reinvent the wheel on this."

That's a big step toward Scherzer being Scherzer. Here's one more.

2) Attack with his fastball in putaway situations

"It's not the stuff. I'm generating swings-and-misses, but I’m not having 'out' pitches. I’m not generating swings-and-misses with two strikes. I’m not generating strikeouts like I can." -- Scherzer on April 4, after two rocky starts to open the season

Scherzer, once again, is right about himself. He's putting hitters away at his lowest rate in a long time.

Scherzer has a 20.9% putaway rate this season -- that's the percentage of his two-strike pitches where he gets the strikeout. Last year, his putaway rate was 25.3%. And he was putting the hitter away at least a quarter of the time in five of the last six seasons prior to 2023.

His fastball is one of the big culprits. Scherzer's putaway rate on his four-seamer this season is just 18.3%, his lowest mark in a season in the Statcast era. From 2015-22, when Scherzer threw a two-strike fastball, he put the hitter away 24.8% of the time.

Scherzer's fastball is still explosive enough to get those K's -- if he can attack the zone like the old Scherzer.

Scherzer's signature as a pitcher is relentlessness in attacking hitters. He challenges them with his four-seamer in the strike zone, and still overpowers them. About 70% of his fastball K's under Statcast tracking have been inside the strike zone, and only Gerrit Cole has more in-zone fastball K's than Scherzer's 553 over that timespan.

But this year, in putaway situations, he's been losing too many of his fastballs out of the zone, and maybe losing strikeout opportunities in the process.

Usually, about three quarters of the fastballs Scherzer throws with two strikes are in the heart of the zone or on the edges. This year, that number is down by about five percentage points, to its lowest point of the Statcast era. Fewer of his fastballs are pounding the zone, where Scherzer can get K's like few other pitchers can; more are ending up in the chase and waste regions, where he often doesn't need them to be.

But the same words Scherzer applied to his slider apply to his fastball: His four-seamer has been great for a long time. He doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to be the typical Max Scherzer down the stretch.