Here’s another reason I’d sit
through a game longer than two hours—the home team, my team, strikes out 20 of
the opposition. That’s what happened
yesterday at Guaranteed Rate Whatever as Reynaldo Lopez punched out 14 Tigers
in six innings of work on way to his second win of the season, by a score of
4-1. Lopez’s 14 strikeouts plus six by
three relievers tied a major-league record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning
game.
As soon as a record is challenged
in baseball, people start talking about it, which means at some point Sox
announcer Jason Benetti mentioned that the Sox record for strikeouts by a
pitcher is 16, set by Jack Harshman against the Red Sox at Fenway Park on July
25, 1954. What kind of baseball fan
would I be if I didn’t check on that game, courtesy of
baseball-reference.com?
The Red Sox team Harshman faced
may have stunk (they’d go 69-85 on the season), but the lineup included the
likes of Jackie Jensen, Jimmy Piersall and Ted Williams, all of whom struck out
at least once against Harshman. Then in
his first season both with the White Sox and as a starting pitcher, Harshman
was already 27. He’d go 69-65 on his
career, which included 192 homeruns in the minors. That’s as a hitter, not a gopher-ball feeder.
The things you learn—Harshman was
also married five times—looking up baseball records.
No comments:
Post a Comment