Max Scherzer is not waiting long before his first spring-training appearance.<\/p>\n
Just over a week after agreeing to return to the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>, Scherzer will get on the mound Saturday against the Philadelphia Phillies (1 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+), manager John Schneider confirmed<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n Schneider also revealed the Blue Jays’ pitching plan for the weekend after Jose Berrios takes the mound Friday against the Pittsburgh Pirates (1 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+). <\/p>\n In split-squad action on Sunday, Kevin Gausman will pitch against the Detroit Tigers (1 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+) and Cody Ponce will take on the Baltimore Orioles.<\/p>\n Scherzer appeared in 17 games and logged 85 innings last year before making three more starts in the playoffs for Toronto. He went 5-5 with a 5.19 ERA through 85 innings in his 18th MLB season as he battled a thumb issue.<\/p>\n The 41-year-old threw a bullpen session on Monday before his deal was formally announced and also threw to hitters on Wednesday to help him ramp up for the regular season. <\/p>\n Scherzer is competing for a spot in the rotation that also includes Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, Trey Yesavage, Cody Ponce, Jose Berrios and Eric Lauer. <\/p>\n Bieber is not expected to be a part of the rotation to start the season as he works his way through arm fatigue, which has delayed his spring training preparation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Scherzer is not waiting long before his first spring-training appearance. Just over a week after agreeing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-518486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}