on june 18, scherzer suffered a broken nose after a ball struck him in the face while bunting in batting practice. nevertheless, he made his scheduled start the next day against the philadelphia phillies. with discoloration near his right eye, he threw 117 pitches and struck out 10 phillies hitters over seven scoreless innings as the nationals won 2–0. in a start on june 30, he faced his former team, the detroit tigers. it was the first time he pitched against detroit at comerica park since joining the nationals, and first since the 20 strikeout game in 2016. this time, he struck out 14 while allowing four hits over eight innings in a 2–1 win for his 90th career double-digit strikeout game. en route to a historic performance, scherzer went 6–0 over six starts and 45 innings in june and became the fourth pitcher since 1920 to post an era of 1.00 or lower while logging at least 68 strikeouts in one calendar month. it was also the first time since 1908 that any pitcher had struck out at least 68 batters while issuing five or fewer walks in one calendar month. after producing two more games with at least 10 strikeouts and no walks issued, scherzer had authored 24 such contests, third-most in history. he was named nl pitcher of the month for the sixth time.