Max Scherzer surprises Dodgers with blame for playoff dead arm

Former Los Angeles Dodgers ace Max Scherzer has found the easiest way to immediately become disowned and identified as a New York Met by the entire state of California.

During his introductory press conference with the folks in (wretches for 25 minutes) Queens, Scherzer was asked about the arm injury he suffered the last time MLB fans saw him in action.

It was only natural, of course. Pair a theoretical risk with a massive-short term contract and a Mets hat, and you’re bound to have some injury-related worries.

According to Scherzer, fans in New York shouldn’t fret about a potential recurrence — even though they’re still fretting about Jacob deGrom’s elbow. The ace claims he’ll be just fine moving forward, and pinned some responsibility for the tired throwing arm on the way the Dodgers used him down the stretch and into the postseason. Of all things!

Max Scherzer blames the Dodgers for his dead arm.

Of all things! Scherzer’s long been known as the guttiest of gamers. To hear him suddenly pin some of the blame on his old franchise makes him seem a bit more like a mercenary who arrived in LA knowing he was approaching free agency, rather than a dyed-in-the-wool Dodger desperate to win in California.

In retrospect, it should be less of a surprise that he followed Steve Cohen like the pied piper to NYC — well, again, kind of NYC. Queens.

According to Scherzer:

“I went past the kind of work capacity where I was built up for. Unfortunately, that happened,” the new Met said in his introductory news conference Wednesday. “I didn’t foresee that happening, but it did. But from a long-term standpoint to a structural standpoint, health standpoint, I’m ready to go. I’m ready to start training.”

In essence, the ace believes that three outings in nine days was too quick a ramp-up after he’d been coddled a bit in September leading into the postseason.

At the time, we somewhat questioned his use in Game 5 of the NLDS, and it seems Scherzer did, too — well, more so what led up to the outing rather than the chance to close out his team’s chief rival like a consummate bulldog.

Apparently, the Dodgers were not aware of Scherzer’s viewpoint, and were caught off guard by his Wednesday assertions to the gathered New York media.

Either way, LA now has a rotation hole to fill, and a fairly spectacular one at that. Maybe if we’d known at the start of the offseason that Scherzer believed he was handled wrong down the stretch, we wouldn’t have written so much speculative content about his Dodgers fit moving forward. Seems like this was over before it really started.

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