WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — The Nationals have announced Max Scherzer as their Opening Day starting pitcher two weeks in advance of the 2015 regular season.
Scherzer, the 2012 AL Cy Young Award winner, signed a seven-year contract this offseason to play for the Nationals. He will get the Opening Day nod against the New York Mets on April 6 over Stephen Strasburg, who has opened each of the past three seasons for Washington.
“It’s a great honor to be able to start Opening Day, especially for this club, and especially on this staff,” Scherzer said. “But at the end of the day, it’s just Game 1. We have 162 of these things, and hopefully we play as well as we can for the entire season.”
Nationals manager Matt Williams noted all of the team’s starters have the ability to go out and beat the other team, “but Max certainly has that ability as well, so we’re confident in that.”
“He’s a really good pitcher. He’s confident,” Williams said. “We’re confident in him, so he’ll toe the slab for us on the first game of the season.”
Of having to make the decision to name one Opening Day starter, and choosing Scherzer over Strasburg or Jordan Zimmermann, Williams had this to say: “It’s a difficult one, but it’s a good one at the same time because we have really good, quality starting pitching. I can tell you this: to a man, the guys that are actually throwing the baseball, they don’t much care about it. They just want the ball every fifth day and go win.”
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