DUNEDIN, Fla. -- Somebody bet Trea Turner during stretches -- it might have been Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott -- that he would not challenge Max Scherzer’s first pitch in Sunday afternoon’s Grapefruit League game at TD Ballpark.

Challenge accepted.

“That’s a great idea,” Turner said. “I’ll do that.”

Challenge made.

“Nobody believed I was going to do it,” Turner said. “So I said, ‘Why not? I don’t care.’”

Scherzer said last week, “Can’t we just be judged by humans?” when asked about Major League Baseball’s ABS challenge system, which is being used in a trial run this spring in Arizona and Florida. Turner read Scherzer’s quote, so he happily trolled his former Nationals teammate about it.

“I was hoping the pitch would be right down the middle,” Turner said.

It wasn’t over the heart of the plate, but it was an obvious strike. Turner tapped the top of his helmet to initiate the challenge anyway.

At first, Scherzer looked confused.

“I don’t think he realized that I challenged it,” Turner said. “And then we were just laughing. It was good. In the regular season, it would really piss him off. But now he's kind of faking his little act. But I knew. I just wanted to see his eyes roll. That's what I was going for.”

Turner lost the challenge, obviously.

“Just some good heat going on behind the scenes there,” Scherzer said. “Trea and I, we’re good friends, so we’ll have a laugh.

“They’re just messing with me. There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes there. I can’t take these at-bats seriously. These are practice games going against good friends of mine. Too many good stories together and Trea is obviously one of my favorite teammates of all time.”

Phillies manager Rob Thomson wasn’t keen on the joke. He said when camp opened that he told players fighting for jobs to challenge balls and strikes because one at-bat or pitch could potentially make the difference in making the team or not.

“The guys that are trying to impress the front office, first-time guys here, guys that are trying to make the ballclub, we’ve got a couple open spots …” Thomson said.

Turner popped out to second base to end the at-bat. Scherzer and Turner exchanged a few words as Turner jogged past the mound.

“I was talking to him about something, but not the challenge,” Turner said.

Meanwhile, Scherzer had his own pregame shenanigans going on. He requested the Blue Jays play Stott’s walk-up song “A-OK” before his at-bats.

Stott is 8-for-13 with a double in his career against Scherzer.

“Yeah,” Stott said. “I hit him good, so he wanted to make me feel good.”

MLB.com Blue Jays reporter Keegan Matheson contributed to this story.