'Keep it going': Leading ALCS, Rangers get Max Scherzer return for Game 3 vs. Astros

ARLINGTON, Texas – If this American League Championship Series was a heavyweight bout, the Texas Rangers would be comfortably ahead on all the scorecards.

They’re about to come out for Round 3 – er, Game 3 on Wednesday – with Max Scherzer pounding his gloves in the blue corner, the famously intense future Hall of Famer ready to bury the Houston Astros while also making his first start in five weeks, stores of energy ready to be unleashed.

In the orange corner, Astros catcher Martin Maldonado puts his finger on the neck of Game 3 starter Cristian Javier, searching for a pulse.

“Nothing,” he said upon crossing paths with Javier on Tuesday at Globe Life Field, where the Astros must win two of the next three games or their season is over.

And perhaps that represents the stance of the two Lone Star State combatants as the series shifts up I-45 to the Metroplex: The Rangers, up 2-0 in the series, ready to administer a knockout blow led by their mound-stalking mercenary.

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And the Astros, the defending World Series champions, hoping to slow the bout down, to regain their footing, to not comprehend their plight while slowly digging out of it.

“I am not thinking about being down 3-0. That's the last thing on my mind,” says Astros manager Dusty Baker. “My mindset is to be down 2-1, and then be even 2-2, and then hopefully get to 3-2 and hopefully get to the World Series.

“That's how my mind thinks.”

Here’s what to track as the series shifts to Arlington:

Mad Max or Mid Max?

Scherzer, 39, has not pitched since Sept. 12, when he suffered a teres major strain in his throwing shoulder sometime during a start at Toronto. Scherzer said he was relieved the injury did not require surgery, keeping him in play to return in the postseason.

It was a good-news, bad-news scenario for the Rangers: Sure, they’ll have their veteran right-hander imported in July available for the playoffs. But they’d also have to deal with his famous impatience, his lobbying, his pawing at the proverbial mound dirt to get back.

He threw a bullpen session in Baltimore and pleaded his case. The Rangers said, maybe not yet.

And proceeded to run their postseason record to 7-0, following up a wild-card sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays with a three-game sweep of the Orioles and two road wins in this ALCS.

The Rangers are peaking. And after Scherzer threw 69 pitches in a simulated game last week, now is the time.

Says Scherzer: “We've got a good thing going, we're flowing, we're rolling. Just continue to keep it going. Now it's my turn to get back into the fray and go out there and compete and give it the best I've got.”

A Scherzer postseason start is always appointment viewing, but the mystery of just what he’ll give them adds a layer of intrigue. Bochy figures Scherzer will replicate that 70-pitch simulated game ceiling, while Scherzer is more open-ended.

Scherzer brings in a 3.58 career playoff ERA in 27 career playoff appearances, 23 of them starts. He had his finest playoff run in 10 games with Washington, posting a 2.92 ERA and .635 opponent OPS from 2015-2019.

Since a 2021 trade to Los Angeles, he’s made five appearances and four starts with the Dodgers and Mets, posting a 4.64 ERA with a .700 OPS against.

This year, he was adequate in 27 starts for the Mets and Rangers, though his 3.77 ERA and 4.32 Fielding Independent Pitching were his worst marks since 2011.

The Rangers aren’t looking for seven shutout innings. Above all, they’re looking for Mad Max – and however much the $43 million man can give them.

“If he could have pitched after missing a start, he would have,” says first baseman Nathaniel Lowe. “He’s playing the long game here. He knows he’s going to make an important start tomorrow, and ideally another one or two after, and a lot in this uniform next year.

“He’s got a lot of baseball in front of him.”

Gator bait?

As Maldonado and Javier crossed paths during Tuesday press conferences, the Astros catcher performed his mock pulse check on their Game 3 starter, as if to prove to gathered observers what he just said was true.

“You don't call him El Reptil for nothing,” Maldonado said of Javier’s longtime nickname. “I feel like that guy, you don't see any blood going through his veins.

“He's the right guy for us. We believe in him. And couldn't be more happy to have him on the mound tomorrow.”

Indeed, Javier has a knack for responding when the chips are down. When the Minnesota Twins squared their AL Division Series with Houston 1-1, Javier took the Game 3 start at a bonkers Target Field – and tossed six shutout innings, striking out nine. The Astros won the series in four games.

When the Phillies smashed five home runs off starter Lance McCullers to take a 2-1 lead in the 2022 World Series, Javier was charged with stemming the tide.

He tossed six hitless innings, striking out nine, and the Astros collaborated for a no-hitter. They never lost again while winning their second World Series.

Now, another challenge.

Like Scherzer, Javier hopes his rep will outshine his 2023 numbers come gametime. Javier backslid to a 4.56 ERA this season – but that Twins start. It’s more than enough for Astros fans to dream on.

Javier hopes so – and also hopes to emulate his favorite reptile.

“Crocodiles seem like they're calm,” he says through a club translator. “But when they get in the water they can get aggressive.”

At home on the road?

Weird club, these Astros.

They had an infinitesimal chance of winning the AL West the final week of the season, then went on the road and finished the season with five wins in six games – and a surprise division title after a final-weekend sweep at Arizona.

That squared with a regular season in which they were a ghastly 39-42 at Minute Maid Park – but 51-30 on the road. The trend continued in the postseason, with a home split and two-game road sweep of the Twins, followed by the two home losses to Texas in the ALCS.

Oh, but Globe Life Field: The Astros went 5-1 here this year, outscoring Texas 39-10 in a three-game September sweep that made winning the division a reality again.

One week later, Scherzer got hurt.

Now, the protagonists are all back, Texas hoping for a turbo boost from its most celebrated veteran and Houston knowing that 2-0 and 5-4 losses are far from impossible to reverse.

“I want to feel success at the end of the game,” says Baker. “That's all I'm worried about. And I've been in all kind of scenarios. I've been up 2-0 and lost. I've been down 2-0 and won, you know, I've been down as a player three games back with three games to go and we tied it up.

“So it's like I'm not giving it to them yet.”