Max Scherzer believes the Dodgers hurt his post-season performance by limiting his innings in the regular season:

“In Washington, I was asked to pitch on the 5 day and pitch 100, 110 pitches consistently, and I loved it. I was built-up to throw a higher work capacity in D.C. So when I got asked to do that (by the Dodgers in 2021), I felt like my arm could respond to that. … (the Dodgers) made decisions to give extra days out and watch our pitch counts for the postseason.

“I just feel that lowered my work capacity so that when I tried to the 2019 formula of being able to pitch out of the pen, my arm was not able to respond to that, because I came out of the lower pitch count.”

Yardbarker.com

I don’t know if I buy that. If you look at Scherzer’s last five regular season starts, the Dodgers only limited his innings in the last two of them. For a seasonal age 36 pitcher, that seemed like a good idea, especially one that suffered an injury mid-season. The more likely explanation is that Scherzer is way past his prime and simply doesn’t have the stamina of his youth.