April 29, 2008: Max Scherzer retires 13 straight, fans 7 in perfect debut for Diamondbacks

The Arizona Diamondbacks woke up on Sunday, April 27, 2008, already leading the National League West Division by six games but carrying a worn-out bullpen. No starter had thrown a pitch in the seventh inning since the previous Monday, forcing the bullpen to cover more than 20 innings in five games – including 7 1/3 innings the day before. To provide manager Bob Melvin with a fresh arm, GM Josh Byrnes optioned Yusmeiro Petit to Triple-A Tucson and promoted 23-year-old Max Scherzer. Two days later, Scherzer, Arizona’s first selection in the June 2006 amateur draft, set down all 13 Houston Astros he faced, seven via strikeout, in a scintillating major-league debut.

The reigning Big-12 Pitcher of the Year, Scherzer was a preseason first-team All-American entering his junior year at the University of Missouri in 2006.1 Baseball America rated the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Scherzer’s fastball the best of any collegiate hurler’s and considered only North Carolina’s Andrew Miller to have a higher ceiling.2 Scherzer also had the rare distinction of having two different colored eyes, one brown and one blue.3

After a statistically impressive but less-than-dominant season (7-3, 2.25 ERA with 78 strikeouts in 80 innings), Scherzer was chosen by Arizona with the 11th pick in the June 2006 amateur draft, the first Missouri Tiger ever selected in the first round.4

By late September, every first-rounder had signed a contract except Scherzer, who was represented by super-agent Scott Boras.5 Unable to reach an agreement with Arizona over the next six months, Scherzer signed with the Fort Worth Cats of the independent American Association.6

Major-league rules at that time allowed teams 51 weeks to sign drafted players. If unsigned by midnight on the following May 30, the player became available for selection in the next draft. After three outings for Fort Worth, Scherzer came to terms with the Diamondbacks late on the evening of May 30, 2007. Exaggerating only slightly, GM Byrnes told reporters, “Tenths of a second were showing on the clock.”7

Scherzer split the rest of 2007 between Advanced-A Visalia, Double-A Mobile, and the Arizona Fall League, showing enough promise to earn an invitation to the Diamondbacks’ big-league camp the following spring. There he demonstrated an electric four-seam fastball that touched 98 MPH with late movement. When Scherzer was reassigned to the Triple-A Tucson Sidewinders in mid-March, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported “a consensus among scouts and executives that Scherzer isn’t far from the majors.”8

As it turned out, he was just four starts away. Scherzer’s minuscule 1.17 ERA for Tucson over 23 innings (while striking out 38 batters and walking only 3) made him the obvious choice to reinforce an overworked Arizona pitching staff.9

On April 28, Arizona opened a 10-game homestand by downing the Houston Astros to begin a three-game series. The next night, Melvin sent veteran swingman Édgar González to the mound, 1-1 with a 4.66 ERA in four starts, looking for a sixth straight Diamondback win over Houston dating back to the previous May. Starting for Houston manager Cecil Cooper was second-year righty Jack Cassel, in his second start of the young season. The older brother of New England Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel had earned his second career win five days earlier in a five-inning outing against the Cincinnati Reds, with whom the Astros were tied for fourth in the NL Central Division.

With gametime temperatures in the mid-90s, the crowd of 20,241 was just beginning to cool down inside air-conditioned Chase Field as the Astros posted the game’s first runs. An RBI double by shortstop Miguel Tejada and an RBI single by left fielder Carlos Lee gave Cassel a 2-0 lead when he took the mound in the bottom of the first. Four batters later, Arizona had knotted the score on a two-run home run by first baseman Conor Jackson.

Houston had a chance to go ahead in the second when Casell singled and second baseman Kazuo Matsui doubled to left-center field, but Casell was thrown out at home by shortstop Stephen Drew on a relay from left fielder Jeff Salazar. A one-out bases-clearing double by third baseman Geoff Blum in the third inning put the Astros up 5-2.

González regrouped to fan sub-.100-hitting right fielder José Cruz Jr. for the second out. When sub-.200-hitting catcher J.R. Towles hit an RBI double, nearly clearing the left-center-field wall and making the score 6-2, Melvin called Scherzer in from the bullpen.10 As Scherzer took his warm-up pitches, an FSN Arizona broadcaster jokingly asked, “Where you been kid?”11 Six pitches later, Cassel became Scherzer’s first major-league strikeout victim, waving at a low and away fastball.

After Cassel set Arizona down in order in the bottom of the third on nine pitches, Scherzer needed just one pitch more to do the same in the top of the fourth. He retired Matsui on a popup to catcher Chris Snyder, struck out center fielder Michael Bourn looking at a low and away breaking ball, and fanned Tejada, a former American League MVP headed to his fifth All-Star selection, on a changeup that dropped out of the strike zone.

In the bottom of the frame, Arizona turned second baseman Orlando Hudson’s leadoff triple into a run, making the score 6-3. The next inning, Scherzer once again needed only 10 pitches to set the Astros down in order, striking out All-Star first baseman Lance Berkman swinging at a fastball, getting Lee to pop out, and blowing up Blum’s bat on a weak grounder to second.

A pair of Arizona walks forced Cassel out of the game in the fifth, but the Diamondbacks failed to push either across against Houston reliever Tim Byrdak. During that inning, Scherzer bunted into a force out in his first major-league at-bat. Undeterred by his failed sacrifice, Scherzer began his third full inning of work with a pair of matching strikeouts, getting both the lefty Cruz and the righty Towles to swing at unhittable up-and-in fastballs. Byrdak, batting 1.000 for the season, lined out to left for the third out of the inning.12

Having thrown only 39 pitches, Scherzer still had plenty left in his tank – he’d last pitched seven days earlier.13 He threw out Matsui attempting to bunt for a hit leading off the seventh and caught Bourn once again looking at strike three, giving him seven punchouts in the game. Tejada hit a tracer on the ground to the right side that looked like a certain hit, but Jackson made a diving grab and beat him to first base, ending the inning.

With two runners on and one out in the seventh, Melvin saw an opportunity to erase the game’s deficit. He lifted Scherzer for pinch-hitter Miguel Montero, who the previous year had clubbed three home runs and registered an elite 1.241 OPS in that role. Facing Doug Brocail, Houston’s fourth pitcher of the game, Montero singled to left, scoring 20-year-old right fielder Justin Upton from second.

The score now 6-4, Arizona could get no closer. Brocail retired the next two batters to end the inning and set the side down in order in the eighth. José Valverde, the Diamondbacks’ all-time saves leader, who had been traded to Houston in the offseason, came in for Brocail in the ninth. He fanned Upton for the first out, surrendered a ground-rule double to Salazar on a ball hit down the right-field line, then struck out a pair of Arizona pinch-hitters to end the game.

Although the Diamondbacks had lost, Melvin was beaming over Scherzer’s performance. “That was quite a debut,” he told reporters. “Once he got past that first hitter, it was lights out. Literally.”14 Not since Jim Merritt of the 1965 Minnesota Twins had a reliever making his debut fanned seven or more while allowing neither an earned run nor a walk.

Registering strikes on 35 of his 47 pitches, Scherzer credited Montero for helping him improve his pitch selection while the catcher was on a rehab assignment in Tucson. “I was told ‘work on your command with secondary stuff.’ I took that to heart and really tried to focus on that.”15

“[Scherzer] had visualized this situation,” Arizona pitching coach Bryan Price told the Arizona Star. “He said, ‘I know I’m going to have more adrenaline. I know I’m going to be pitching against guys I’ve seen on TV a lot and I admire. How am I gonna handle that?’” Taking command of his emotions, Scherzer “went out and slowed the game down.”16

A week after this game, Scherzer made his first career start, losing to the Philadelphia Phillies and the major leagues’ then-oldest player, 45-year-old Jamie Moyer. In mid-June Scherzer was sent back down to Triple A, then shut down for a month due to shoulder fatigue.17 Recalled in late August, he made a pair of relief outings before returning to a starting role. On September 7 Scherzer faced fellow 2006 first-round draft pick Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers and in a losing effort crafted his first double-digit strikeout performance as a major leaguer.18 That outing  marked the first of 464 consecutive regular-season starts that Scherzer has made as of mid-August 2025, a streak that has netted him 219 wins, 8 All-Star Team selections and 3 Cy Young Awards.  

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Max Scherzer, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted YouTube highlights of FSN Sports’ TV broadcast of this game as well as the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com websites, including box scores and play-by-play at these links:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ARI/ARI200804290.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2008/B04290ARI2008.htm

Notes

1 Matt Nestor, “Dealing Out Defeat,” Columbia (Missouri) Tribune, May 27, 2005: B1. “MU Cracks Baseball America’s Top 10,” Columbia Tribune, January 5, 2006: 2B.

2 Jeff Passan, “Unmatched Eyes of the Tiger,” Kansas City Star, March 4, 2006: D1; Bob Dutton, “Royals Seek College Arm,” Kansas City Star, March 4, 2006: D6. Baseball-Reference.com lists Scherzer as 6-feet-3.

3 Derrick Goold, “Eyes of the Tiger,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 9, 2006: B1. Scherzer has the hereditary trait known as heterochromia. In the US, about 6 in 10,000 people have different-colored irises. “What is Heterochromia and Why Do Some People Have Different Colored Eyes?” Dean McGee Eye Institute, May 22, 2023, https://www.dmei.org/blog/what-is-heterochromia-and-why-do-some-people-have-different-colored-eyes/.

4 2006 Missouri Tigers: Pitching Statistics, The Baseball Cube, https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/stats_college/2006~20458/#pitching, accessed August 16, 2025;

Graham Watson, “MU Pitcher Tries to Regain What He Lost,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 6, 2006: C1; Nick Piecoro, “D-Backs Take Scherzer with 1st Pick,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix), June 7, 2006: C7. Six pitchers were selected ahead of Scherzer, including five college hurlers and one high-schooler: Luke Hochevar (selected number one out of the University of Tennessee), Greg Reynolds (2 – Stanford), Brad Lincoln (4 – Houston), Brandon Morrow (5 – California), Miller (6), Clayton Kershaw (7 – Highland Park HS, Texas), and Tim Lincecum (10 – Washington).

5 Jeffrey Flanagan, “Scherzer Unsigned,” Kansas City Star, September 24, 2006: C2.

6 “Scherzer Signs with Independent League,” Columbia Tribune, April 18, 2007: 15. Scherzer appeared to be following the path that 2006 number-one pick Luke Hochevar had taken a year earlier, signing with the Cats to improve his draft position after being selected much lower in the previous draft. Hochevar had been the 40th pick of the 2005 draft, selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

7 “Three Up,” Chicago Tribune, June 1, 2007: 4-8.

8 Nick Piecoro, “Scherzer’s Learning Time,” Arizona Republic, March 14, 2008: C9.

9 Nick Piecoro, “Scherzer Called Up, Assigned to Pen,” Arizona Republic, April 28, 2008: C7.

10 Brian McTaggart, “Astros’ Fast Start Is Enough,” Houston Chronicle, April 30, 2008: 33. C3.

11 “Scherzer Retires 13 Straight in Debut,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 1:21, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qo7rELBZlg, accessed June 27, 2025.

12 Five days earlier, in his lone 2008 plate appearance before this game, Byrdak had singled. It was the second and last base hit of his major-league career, which extended to 2012.

13 “Grizzlies Report,” Fresno Bee, April 23, 2008: D5.

14 Bruce Pascoe, “Scherzer Stellar in First Game in Majors,” Arizona Star (Tucson), April 30, 2008: C1.

15 “Scherzer Stellar in First Game in Majors.”

16 “Scherzer Stellar in First Game in Majors.”

17 Don Ketchum and Doug Haller, “Scherzer to Tucson,” Arizona Republic, June 14, 2008: C8.

18 Larry DeFillipo, “September 7, 2008: Rookies Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer Fill In for a Pair of Future Hall of Famers,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-7-2008-rookies-clayton-kershaw-and-max-scherzer-fill-in-for-a-pair-of-future-hall-of-famers/.