So here's the curveball that Nationals ace Max Scherzer snapped off against Matt Holliday of the Cardinals on Wednesday ... 

That's a nasty-looking 12-6er right there. What's remarkable, at least from a visual standpoint, is that it's essentially a curve with "overhand" movement but thrown from a pretty low arm angle. In an opposite kind of way, it calls to mind Pedro Martinez's ability to get topspin on a changeup when he wanted to. Yes, Martinez was pronating in order to do that, and Scherzer is supinating in order to break off this curve, but the degree of wrist strength and flexibility would seem to be similar. These kinds of things seem hard to do, is what I'm saying. 

Anyhow, Scherzer hasn't been throwing his curve for very long. As this usage chart from Brooks Baseball will show you (Scherzer's curve is in yellow), the pitch didn't even show up until mid-2012 (June 28, 2012, against the Rays, to be precise) ... 

As you might imagine, Scherzer's curveball still isn't fully formed. In fact, last July Scherzer talked about needing three years to master a new pitch. According to that implied timeline, the three-year mark should happen by the middle of the 2015 season. And if the GIF above is any guide, the shape of Scherzer's curve is certainly in top form. 

Now let's take a look at a much earlier curve. Here's one against the Rays on June 28, 2013 -- i.e., one year to the day after Scherzer first threw a curveball in a major-league game ... 

Scherzer's early, fledging curveball was much more horizontally oriented than it is now. That's a useful evolution for Scherzer. After all, he added the curve to his repertoire in the service of keeping the opposite side in check, and to that end a top-to-bottom breaking ball is much more useful than one that runs inside on lefties. 

Speaking of lefties, Scherzer's curveball percentage against the opposite, per Brooks Baseball, hand has increased from 2.18 percent in 2012 to 11.01 percent in 2013 to 14.57 percent last season. It's replaced the slider as Scherzer's third pitch against left-handed batters, which indicates increasing confidence in the pitch. So does this: Scherzer's first-pitch curve percentage against lefties has increased from 2.47 percent in 2012 to 13.9 percent in 2013 to 16.76 percent in 2014. In related matters, Scherzer has seen much better results in platoon-disadvantaged situations since he debuted the curve. 

As Scherzer himself would likely say, the pitch isn't yet where it needs to be. Last season, for instance, Scherzer's curve notched a swinging-strike percentage of 8.22, while the benchmark for the curve is 9.5 percent. Then again, if he throws more of them like the one with which he baffled Holliday on Wednesday, then that percentage will rise substantially. 

Still in his prime, pitching in front of a better defense and out of the DH league, Scherzer was already poised for at least superficial improvement in his first season in D.C. Throw a possibly improving curveball into the mix, and genuine improvement from his already lofty base-line also seems likely. 

Max Scherzer’s curveball is coming along just fine, thanks. (USATSI)
Max Scherzer’s curveball is coming along just fine, thanks. (USATSI)