Last Night In Baseball: Max Scherzer Is 2 Strikeouts From Making MLB History

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Monday was Max Scherzer’s 42nd birthday. It was also his return to the mound for the first time since June 10, which was itself his first start since May 24 — Scherzer has spent most of 2026 on the IL recovering from various maladies, but was activated yesterday to pitch on his birthday, and against his former team, the Nationals. Nats fans still remember what Scherzer did for them in the middle of his career, winning back-to-back NL Cy Young awards and his excellent 2019, which he capped off with 30 postseason innings in six games — all of which Washington won — on the way to its first and only World Series championship. Scherzer’s career is likely nearing its end, but he has one bit of history he’s still chasing. He can enter the top 10 for career strikeouts, and might very well be the last pitcher we see do so for some time — with the way starters are used these days, in much shorter bursts, even high-strikeout arms might not be able to rack up the Ks the way Scherzer has in his career. He began last night’s start six shy of tying Hall of Famer Walter Johnson for the 10th-most strikeouts in history: Scherzer pitched for just 2 ⅔ innings, but whiffed four in that stretch, leaving him two shy of tying Johnson and three from sole possession of 10th. It would be massive were he make his push into the top 10, not just for Scherzer but for MLB. Braves’ ace Chris Sale is the active pitcher with the next-most strikeouts to Scherzer’s 3,507; he’s already 37 years old and at 2,713 punch outs. Getting to 3,000 is extremely doable for Sale, who has a 2.19 ERA and 134 strikeouts in 111 innings this year, but guaranteeing he’ll get another 800 or so between now and when he hangs it up is impossible. Both Scherzer and Justin Verlander were still going strong late into their 30s, until they suddenly were not, and the same could happen to Sale. Next up is Gerrit Cole, at 2,317 strikeouts — he’s already 35, nearly 36, and is looking at another nearly 1,200 whiffs. At his strikeout rate of the last three seasons, he would need nearly that many innings to get there: Cole has 2,016 in his career to date. Kevin Gausman is even further behind and also 35, Sonny Gray is 36, deGrom is 38 and looking to get to 2,000… you get the idea. It doesn’t take long before you get into “Well if Paul Skenes or Jacob Misiorowski have perfect health and no decline for the bulk of two decades, then…” as you try to figure out who could be next. That’s simply a reminder of how special what Scherzer has already accomplished is, though. He has been exceptionally healthy in his career, generally speaking. He has averaged 10.6 strikeouts per nine over 19 seasons and nearly 3,000 innings. He had a nine-year stretch with a cumulative 2.82 ERA and 2,191 strikeouts — that’s more than Gausman, Gray and deGrom have managed in their entire careers. Just two more strikeouts, and there he is, at a milestone we might not see again for a long time or possibly ever. The Blue Jays would top the Nats, 3-2, dropping Washington one game over .500 and one game back in the NL wild-card standings, while Toronto sits five back of the last AL wild-card spot, at a disappointing 49-58. The 12-game losing streak is over for the Marlins, which is just kind of how things have been going for the Phillies of late. First baseman Bryce Harper made it 2-0 Phils with a dinger in the first inning, but Miami answered back when left fielder Heriberto Hernández went yard in the bottom of the frame. The Marlins’ lineup then fill a single short of the cycle in the second: right fielder Griffin Conine homered, center fielder Jakob Marsee doubled and shortstop Otto Lopez tripled, leading to three runs and a 5-2 lead. Philadelphia rallied for four runs in the sixth, culminating in a shot through the hole in the left side of the infield by center fielder Justin Crawford to take a 6-5 lead. The Phillies would add one more in the eighth, but the Marlins had last ups, and made the best of them. Miami faced closer Jhoan Duran, who has barely pitched of late — he had just 2 ⅓ innings since the All-Star break ended before last night. Duran looked a little rusty, giving up a leadoff single to Marsee and another single to Lopez, before hitting first baseman Kyle Stowers with a pitch to load the bases. Hernández then added another single to make it 7-7, then Duran allowed another single, this time to second baseman Xavier Edwards. DH Liam Hicks grounded into a force out at home to keep the game tied, but Conine was there to make sure that Miami would get the walk-off win. Starter Zack Wheeler lasted just three innings, and that didn’t seem to phase Philadelphia at first. Duran was shaky, though, and Philly paid for it with a loss. For the Marlins, the win gained them a game on four teams in front of them in the wild-card standings, one of which is the Phillies. Miami is still 53-54, however, and despite being two games behind is also trailing seven other teams for those three spots. There’s a lot of work left to be done in the 2026 season for both clubs. Orioles’ center fielder Colton Cowser had to leg it out to make this catch, but once he did, he also needed to get the ball back to the infield. Luckily he had right fielder Leody Taveras there to assist. That’s a heads up play by the pair, as that was the first out of the inning and there was a runner on first. Thanks to passing the ball off, he stayed at first, too. That also wasn’t the only unconventional outfield assist of the night for Taveras. Here he is trying to help catch a squirrel with the grounds crew. It did not go as well as the Cowser catch. Hey, they got there eventually! Squirrel unharmed but corralled. Try some peanuts next time, stadiums are full of them. Baltimore ended up defeating the Tigers, 8-5, by the way. Which animal-based team do you think the squirrel was rooting for, anyway? The Diamondbacks and Pirates are tied for the final wild-card spot in the NL, based on their identical 55-52 records. However, tiebreakers exist, and Pittsburgh currently possesses the first one, as that’s head-to-head record. The Pirates entered play up 2-1 in the season series, so winning this second — and final — set between the two teams would carry serious weight for the Bucs should the season come down to the wire and it’s this pair vying for the final postseason slot. The Pirates made things that much more difficult for Arizona in this regard, thanks to walking it off. The D-backs scored first and twice in the sixth, then the Pirates tied it up by responding once in the bottom half of the inning and then again in the eighth. The two were scoreless after that, resulting in extras, where second baseman Brandon Lowe got a chance to win it. And he took it. The bases were juiced, and first baseman Ildemaro Vargas couldn’t reel in the ball hit right to him — game, Pirates. If Pittsburgh wins one more game against Arizona this week, then it has that first tiebreaker settled. Of course, Arizona is just one of six teams within 4.5 games of the Pirates in the wild-card standings; we might not know the actual value of this win for another two months. But better to have the dub and not need it, you know? It took some time for the Yankees to break this one open. The White Sox scored three in the first inning off of Max Fried — he’s still shaking off a little rust, it seems — and but then the favor was returned with a four-run fourth by New York that knocked White Sox starter Noah Schultz out of the game. While the White Sox would tie the game, DH Ben Rice would give New York the go-ahead run with a solo homer in the seventh. And New York held onto its slim lead with a great relay from left afterward: second baseman Chase Meidroth hit a ball to the wall in left, but Max Schuemann got the ball in to shortstop Anthony Volpe behind third base, and he got the ball home to catcher Ali Sánchez to beat DH Colson Montgomery to the plate. The Yankees then added four more runs in the top of the eighth, capped by a home run from Sánchez: his first in the majors. Sánchez isn’t some first-time rookie in the bigs getting his first dong: he debuted back in 2020 with the Mets, was on the Cardinals the next season, didn’t come to the minors until 2024 when he was on the Marlins, spent last season with the Blue Jays and Red Sox and now finds himself in the majors again with the Yankees. It took seven seasons to get 75 big-league games and 184 trips to the plate, but Sánchez got that dinger. And the Yankees got a 9-5 dub. Entering the eighth inning, the Astros were losing to the Angels, 4-1. Shortstop Jeremy Peña led off the inning with a double, though, and DH Yordan Alvarez drove him in for his AL-leading 78th RBI. Then, in the ninth, the real rally kicked off. The Astros would face new pitcher José Fermin, and he proceeded to hit left fielder Taylor Trammell with his second pitch. Trammell then took second on a passed ball, and catcher Christian Walker singled him to third. Center fielder Lucas Spence pushed Trammell across with a fielder’s choice, but an error by second baseman Vaughn Grissom meant everyone was safe — 4-3, no outs, runners at the corners. Astros’ catcher Christian Vázquez then bunted for the first out of the inning, and the Angels put in another new pitcher, Sam Bachman. While he got Peña to ground into an out at home, Alvarez was intentionally walked to load the bases, followed by infielder Isaac Paredes being hit by a pitch to tie the game, 4-4. The Angels then lost an ABS challenge with right fielder LaMonte Wade Jr. at the plate, resulting in another run being walked in, and then second baseman Jose Altuve pushed the fourth run of the inning across thanks to a fielding error by Bachman — can’t even blame the rest of the defense for that one. Just an ugly, ugly inning for the Angels, full of walks and hit batsmen and errors, and it resulted in the Astros staging a comeback to win. Houston finds itself just 1.5 behind a wild-card spot in the AL despite a sub-.500 record — it will take any win, no matter how ugly. Red Sox center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela picked a good time for his first career grand slam: it was a game that Boston won by the score of 4-2 against the Athletics. The Sox were down 1-0 entering the sixth, but catcher Connor Wong doubled to open the inning against starter Jack Perkins, and then first baseman Willson Contreras drew a two-out walk. Perkins exited, replaced by reliever José Suarez, who promptly walked his first batter, Wilyer Abreu. With the bases loaded, Rafaela stepped up and saw an 82.2 mph slider inside on the third pitch of the at-bat: he sent it back 382 feet over the wall, to give Boston all the runs it would need. The Sox are now 55-50, two games up on the Guardians and in possession of the second wild-card in the AL. The A’s, well… the Angels also losing means the Athletics didn’t fall any further toward the AL’s worst record. The Mets had a big win against the Dodgers to close out their weekend series on Sunday, and on Monday kept that energy going against the Braves. Atlanta has lost to the Mets five times in eight meetings this year, the most losses it has suffered against any team. Yes, the Braves play the Mets regularly since they are both in the NL East, but also the Mets are 45-62, just three games up on the Rockies for the NL’s worst record. So, it’s still a real Go Figure situation for Atlanta, which is tied for the third-most wins in the league this year. The star of the show for New York was shortstop Francisco Lindor. He went 3-for-5 with a game-leading six RBIs, courtesy of an RBI triple in the first inning, followed by a two-run jack in the third… …and then a 396-foot blast, nearly 105 mph off the bat, in the eighth to put the Mets up 14-3. That ended up being the final score, with most of the damage coming late: while starter Martín Perez allowed just three runs in five innings of work, reliever Connor Thomas allowed two in the sixth, four in the seventh and five in the eighth — the Braves just left him out there for all but one of the remaining outs. In just 11 ⅔ innings in the majors, the lefty Thomas has allowed 27 unearned runs for an ERA of 20.83. That is rough for everyone involved.