Fresh off no-hitter, Scherzer faces Phillies

The Phillies have already faced Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer three times through 74 games this season.

They haven't opposed the righthander on this kind of roll.

On Friday night at Citizens Bank Park, Scherzer will make his first start since he pitched a no-hitter Saturday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 30-year-old pitcher is coming off consecutive complete games. His two singles as a hitter in that span are more than he has surrendered on the mound.

"You just have to refocus and not get complacent," Scherzer told reporters in Washington. "You can't think that success just happens and you can walk out on the mound and you can have success. No. Success comes from hard work, from doing everything in the weight room to going out and running, doing everything you've got to prepare in the bullpens and making sure that your pitches are sharp, and you've got to be focused to be able to do that.

"I've had two really good starts. My focus is on what I can do in the third, making sure that all of my stuff is ready to go to face the Phillies, because I know how challenging it will be."

Scherzer was one strike away from a perfect game before hitting the Pirates' Jose Tabata with a pitch. Surprisingly, given his pedigree, his two consecutive complete games are among only three over his eight major-league seasons with Arizona, Detroit, and Washington.

Scherzer will face a Phillies team that scored only two runs and was held scoreless for eight innings Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Before that loss, they experienced their best three offensive games of the season, combining for a blistering 31 runs in their series finale against the St. Louis Cardinals and the first two games against the New York Yankees.

In three starts against the Phillies, the Nats' $210 million man is 2-0 with a 1.23 ERA and has allowed 14 hits. The name Johnny Vander Meer has been tossed around plenty since Saturday - he is the only pitcher in baseball history to throw back-to-back no-hitters, in 1938 for the Cincinnati Reds.

"Of course you're proud of [the no-hitter]. It's a huge accomplishment to be able to do that. But you also realize that as good as I've been over the past two games, my season's not going to be defined by this," Scherzer told reporters. "Your season is defined by 33 starts and what you do within those 33 starts, so the fact that I've had two really good ones doesn't mean anything . . . over the course of a season.

"I know what it takes to have success and how hard it is to have success at this level. My mission now is to finish out the rest of the year as well as I can, and it starts on Friday facing the Phillies, and that's going to be a tough challenge."