the pitchers have superpowers, pt 3: Max Scherzer

illustrations by Samara Pearlstein

Oh I know, how presumptuous! Can we even talk about Scherzer’s superpowers when he has yet to throw a single pitch for the Tigers? Well, yes we can, because here at Roar of the Tigers we have Inside Knowledge and Stuff. His superpower is pretty obvious anyways.

Max Scherzer has X-ray vision. So obvious, this is almost a cop-out of a reveal. He has one blue eye and one brown eye, which is a genetically-based trait known as heterochromia. Normal people with both eyes the same color see in solid 3D, Max Scherzer sees BEYOND the 3D! It’s like how normal people combine the input of two separate eyes to get depth perception, Scherzer combines the input of his blue eye and his brown eye to get X-ray vision.

Of course he doesn’t REALLY shoot X-rays out of his eyeballs, that would be ridiculous. But the results are functionally the same and ‘X-ray vision’ is an easy shorthand that everyone can understand.

The advantages of someone on a baseball team having X-ray vision are clear. Never again will Carlos Guillen have to agonize over the unknown state of his Surgically Repaired Knees! Hairline fractures, displacements, dislocations, all of these and more can be gazed upon with a new immediacy, now that Scherzer is on the team. Joel Zumaya might keep him around at all times, just in case. Don’t expect the team to announce these immediate results, of course– they will still send players to the hospital for analysis, as Scherzer is not, after all, a trained medical professional. But they will have new, near-instantaneous insight into the inevitable injuries of their players.

This is also an incredibly valuable skill when it comes to identifying which teams are FILTHY CHEATERS and have been padding their rosters with humanoid robots instead of real live baseball players. This is a serious problem in the Cheating Culture of today’s MLB, and any team that can get an edge on robot-related intelligence is a team with a strong advantage.

The downside? Well, I am sure you can imagine it just as easily.

X-ray vision is not as easily weaponizable a skill as flaming fireballs, so Scherzer should not be in as much danger from potential kidnappers as Verlander generally is, but, lacking the escape skills of FredFred, he will still need to rely on Paws for some protection during the season. I am not sure what protection system Arizona had in place, but hopefully he will not find it too difficult to transition to the Tigers’ system and Paws’ secretive, protective ways.