Texas Rangers right-hander Max Scherzer will miss the rest of the regular season because of a strained muscle in his shoulder, the team announced Wednesday.

Rangers general manager Chris Young said it was unlikely Scherzer would be able to pitch in the postseason if Texas qualifies.

Scherzer has a strained teres major, a muscle that connects the scapula to the humerus.

Max Scherzer moved into 11th place on baseball’s career strikeout list, getting his 3,343rd on Sunday to pass Hall of Fame knuckleballer Phil Niekro.

Scherzer, making his fourth start for the AL West-leading Texas Rangers since getting traded from the New York Mets, struck out Milwaukee second baseman Brice Turang in the third inning. It was Scherzer’s third strikeout of the game.

The three-time Cy Young Award winner, who is in his 16th season, is baseball’s active strikeout leader and was pitching in his 453rd game. Niekro threw in 864 big league games.

Everything had lined up right. Last year’s free agent signings, Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, were in their primes, others on the team in the midst of career years. Three-time World Series-winning manager Bruce Bochy had come out of retirement to shepherd the Rangers. Yet on Saturday night, four days ahead of the 2023 deadline, as bright as their future suddenly looked, they couldn’t gaze into the distance. Right in front of them was a window, wide open.

“If we’re not going for it now,” Rangers general manager Chris Young said, “when would we?”..

Later that day, when the Mets traded reliever David Robertson to the Miami Marlins, Scherzer sought a meeting with Cohen for clarity about the team’s plans going forward. On July 28, Cohen informed him the team was not planning a free agent spending spree this winter—certainly, nothing like the $498.1 million they guaranteed in the 2022-23 offseason—and was targeting 2025 as the beginning of its next window. At that point, Scherzer decided he would not stand in the way of a deal that landed him in a desirable spot.

Still, the Mets are 36-43 and a long way from a playoff spot (they were 8 1/2 games out of the last wild card entering play on Tuesday). With all the big contracts and big names there, we’re bound to see plenty of speculation as to a possible sell-off. One of the bigger names there is three-time Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer. He has a no-trade clause on his deal, but MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo suggests that it’s possible that won’t be a problem:

Regarding Scherzer’s no-trade clause, he’s 38 and looking to win another title. Several industry sources have suggested he would waive it for the right situation. 

DiComo later clarified that Scherzer’s top priority is winning with the Mets, but that if things continue to go badly for the Mets, the waiving of the no-trade clause might be possible.

6:56pm: Major League Baseball announced Thursday evening that Mets star Max Scherzer has been suspended for ten games for “violating the prohibitions on foreign substances.” He was also fined an undisclosed amount, which Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports at $10K.
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Bellino opined that Scherzer had used “something likely more than rosin” based on its stickiness. MLB’s announcement reflected a similar sentiment. “Based on the umpires’ training to detect rosin on a pitcher’s hands, they concluded that the level of stickiness during the fourth inning check was so extreme that it was inconsistent with the use of rosin and/or sweat alone,” the league wrote. MLB’s press release says umpires “appropriately ejected Mr. Scherzer from the game” at that point.
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7:53pm: In a surprising twist, Scherzer informed reporters this evening he’s elected not to appeal after all. The right-hander said he’d initially believed an appeal would be heard by a neutral arbitrator but later was informed it would go in front of an MLB official. (Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic specifies that special assistant to the commissioner John McHale would have heard the appeal.) As a result, Scherzer conceded he wouldn’t win and has elected not to pursue it.

Max Scherzer was ejected before the fourth inning of Wednesday’s game between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers after he appeared to run afoul of MLB’s rules forbidding sticky substances.

The drama began at the start of the third inning, when Scherzer met with first-base umpire Phil Cuzzi for a foreign substance check. Cuzzi ended up ordering him to change gloves for the inning, which he did.

Before the fourth inning, however, Scherzer once again had his hands and glove inspected by the umpires, and he was ejected after a heated argument…

According to SNY field reporter Steve Gelbs, Scherzer was repeatedly shouting “It’s just rosin” to the umpires before his ejection. MLB provides a rosin bag to pitchers as a legal option to improve pitch grip, but the combination of rosin and sunscreen or sweat has been known for years to provide a DIY sticky substance. Scherzer is very aware of this.