Max Scherzer makes the Orioles pay after their fans 'tick him off'

Don’t make Max Scherzer angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. The Orioles and their fans learned that the hard way during Thursday’s 4-0 loss at Nationals Park.

Scherzer was outstanding, striking out 10 over eight scoreless innings and making this ridiculous between-the-legs grab in the fifth inning.

But it what happened in the eighth inning that really pumped him up. After Orioles slugger Mark Trumbo led off with a single, Baltimore fans started to get loud in hopes of helping to fuel a rally. And Scherzer noticed, as The Washington Post noted:

“It was just one of those things; it was the eighth inning, and we were winning the ballgame and I just remember hearing the Orioles fans,” Scherzer said in a Friday morning interview on 106.7 The Fan. “I mean, they’re obviously going to be there. You know it’s a great rivalry. But it just felt like it got really loud considering the situation. To have that many O’s fans cheering at that point in time, man, I didn’t like that. I’m not gonna lie. …

“When you’re in your home park, you want your home fans cheering for you, not the opposing fans,” he said on Friday. “So when I heard that, that definitely ticked me off and I definitely wanted to do something about that. And that put the full adrenaline in.”

Scherzer struck out the next two Orioles batters and then retired J.J. Hardy on a flyout to end the inning. Throughout it all, Scherzer was screaming at himself, snarling as he stormed around the mound and falling just short of foaming at the mouth.

Oh, and about that circus play on the grounder in the fifth inning? Teammate Bryce Harper was impressed ... sort of.

"I think we'll be hearing a lot about that the next couple of days so I don't want to give him too much credit," Harper joked, per the Nationals' website.