Max Scherzer Fans 14, Becomes AL's 1st 14-Game Winner; Milwaukee Tops Cubs, 6-2, as Mike Fiers Ks 14

Players of the Day for Thursday, August 14, 2014

American League

Max Scherzer

It's often been said that good pitching defeats good hitting and that was exactly the case with Max Scherzer earning his 14th win against just four losses in a 5-2 Tiger victory over Pittsburgh, Detroit winning both games of the brief series at home.

Scherzer threw 121 pitches over eight innings, 81 of them for strikes, allowing three hits while fanning 14 Pirate hitters, getting every Pittsburgh starter at least once on strikes. Scherzer left with a 2-0 lead. The Tigers added three runs in the bottom of the eighth, and Pittsburgh got their only two run in the top of the ninth.

Scherzer walked two, lowered his ERA to 2.98, took over second place in the AL strikeout race at 196 (teammate David Price leads with 205), leads the league in innings pitched (185 1/3), became the first 14-game winner in the AL and kept the Tigers 1/2 game behind Kansas City in the AL Central division. The Royals topped Oakland, 7-3.

Mike Fiers

National League

The Milwaukee Brewers earned a 2-2 split in their series at Chicago, topping the Cubs, 6-2, as Mike Fiers struck out 14 over six shutout innings.

Fiers, who spent most of this season at the Brewers' AAA affiliate, Nashville, of the Pacific Coast League, has had just three starts, but has won the last two, beating the Dodgers last week (8 IP, 3 H, 1 ER) before taming the Cubs Thursday afternoon.

Moving down the Cubs, Fiers struck out the side in the second, then got the first two batters on strikes in the third. In the fifth inning, he recorded all three outs on strikeouts, as he did in the sixth. Welling Castillo walked with two outs in the fifth; Anthony Rizzo singled with two down in the sixth.

Fiers left the game after the sixth inning with a 5-0 lead, allowing just three hits and the lone walk. The Cubs scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh, and the Brewers tacked on a run in the eighth.

Milwaukee's win kept them two games up on the Cardinals in the Central division. St. Louis took back second place with a 4-3 win over the Padres, with Pittsburgh losing to Detroit. The Pirates are 2 1/2 back.