Max Scherzer struggled a bit in his second exhibition appearance on Thursday, but the ace is happy to face some adversity early on.

The right-hander allowed two runs in three innings against the Houston Astros. He also had two wild pitches and a walk. He struck out five batters.

"You don’t want to just go three up, three down," Scherzer said. "You want to pitch out of the stretch. You want broken-bat base hits to fall in. You want to face some adversity and have to make pitches around that."