Blue Jays’ Max Scherzer reaches 3,000 career innings

The three-time Cy Young Award winner reached 3,000 career innings after retiring the Boston Red Sox in the first frame at Rogers Centre on Thursday. He induced a pop-out from Masataka Yoshida to cross the threshold.

While 139 pitchers have reached the milestone in MLB history, Justin Verlander is the only other active pitcher with over 3,000 career innings pitched.

CC Sabathia, Zack Greinke and Mark Buehrle are the only other pitchers to accomplish the feat this century.

As MLB teams and the sport as a whole have become increasingly cognizant of pitchers' arm health, and the number of pitching-related elbow surgeries has increased, teams have become more conservative with their starters' usage.

Scherzer entered MLB's top 10 all-time strikeout leaders in his last start on Aug. 8, punching out Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber for his 3,516th career K.

The 42-year-old struggled with health issues and underperformance to start this season, making just five starts and pitching to a 9.64 ERA over the first two months.

However, he's rediscovered his form lately, logging a 2.57 ERA with 13 strikeouts over his last 14 innings entering play Thursday.

Chris Sale is third among active starters with 2,207 innings pitched and is projected to come well short of the 3,000 mark. No other current pitcher is on pace to achieve the milestone, either.