Texas Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer has another reason to hate the pitch clock.
No fan of the timing mechanism since its inception this past season, the three-time Cy Young Award winner is also blaming it for an increase in arm injuries. Scherzer bases his claim on conversations with renowned surgeons Dr. Keith Meister and Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who contend that pitcher injuries were more severe in 2023.
Dr. Keith Meister is the Rangers’ team doctor.
“Both of them are saying the same thing: that they saw an uptick in severity,” Scherzer said on the “Foul Territory” podcast. “It makes you start scratching your head. What’s unique to 2023 here? When you make the game go faster, part of the thing is, as a pitcher, I lived it. Your form just gets fatigued faster.
“For starting pitchers that are trying to pitch 100 pitches, you’re going through that fatigue, you’re over-gripping the baseball to try to combat that fatigue, and that’s a very plausible reason for the severity of the elbow injuries.”
Scherzer didn’t put all the blame on the pitch clock, adding that it’s just part of the problem. Still, the artificial nature of pitching under a time limit was a foreign concept in baseball for basically its entire existence.
Whether the pitch clock has led to an increase in injuries, especially regarding the elbow, has yet to be verified by MLB officials. The sample size – one season – is likely too small to conduct any definitive studies.
Scherzer dealt with a shoulder injury late in the regular season and suffered back spasms in Game 3 of the World Series.
He criticized the pitch clock on several occasions while with the New York Mets before coming to Texas before the trade deadline.
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