Max Scherzer Made History
Max Scherzer just threw a complete game in a victory over the Detroit Tigers. That’s not the important part. The important part is that the outs went like this:
- Foul out
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Ground out
- Foul out
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Fly out
- Ground out
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Fly out
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Strikeout
- Fielder’s choice
Sorry, I just had to see them all laid out like that.
Max Scherzer struck out 20 batters, tying the major league record for a nine-inning start, and he walked none. The hits don’t matter. The runs don’t matter. Twenty big league hitters went to the plate against Max Scherzer tonight doing everything in their power to make contact, and 20 big league hitters failed. Scherzer’s the fifth pitcher in major league history to strike out 20 in a nine-inning game, joining Kerry Wood, Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens (x2). Interestingly, all five 20 strikeout games were without a walk. When you’re locked in, you’re locked in.
He never needed more than 16 pitches to get through an inning. He touched 98 in the ninth. In traditional Scherzer fashion, he pounded the strike zone with his fastball, and against a Tigers lineup that featured seven right-handed batters, he used his slider like he’s never used his slider before. Scherzer threw 37 sliders, a career-high for a single game. The Tigers swung 21 times. They whiffed 10 of those times. Scherzer didn’t need the cutter. He didn’t need the curve. He barely needed the changeup. When you’re as good as Max Scherzer was tonight, the fastball and the slider will do.
He threw 119 pitches. Ninety-six of them were strikes. I’m going to show you a graphic to give you some time to digest that number, and we’ll revisit it momentarily.
He threw 96 strikes in 119 pitches. 96! 119!
Since the expansion era began in 1961, Scherzer’s the only pitcher with at least 96 strikes in fewer than 120 pitches. His rate of strikes thrown has been topped just four times since the expansion era began in 1961:
Highest strike rate, minimum 100 pitches, 1961-present
- Curt Schilling, 9/20/02, 82.5%
- Roy Halladay, 8/25/12, 81.9%
- David Wells, 4/19/01, 81.0%
- David Wells, 8/30/97, 80.7%
- Max Scherzer, 5/11/16, 80.7%
Max Scherzer just threw one of the all-time dominant games baseball’s ever seen. I’ll have a full writeup in the morning (that post is now live and can be found here), but for now, enjoy yourself some fun facts and tweets:
Max Scherzer: 20 strikeouts tonight. Shelby Miller, Jacob deGrom, Derek Holland: 20 strikeouts all season. #actualfacts
— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) May 12, 2016
If you’re wondering how nerdy stats handle outlier games like 20 K performances, Max Scherzer had a -0.14 xFIP tonight. Yes, negative.
— David Cameron (@DCameronFG) May 12, 2016
Max Scherzer, In the last 365 days, covering 34 starts and 231 innings, has 40 walks and 287 K’s
— Brian Cartwright (@blcartwright) May 12, 2016
Scherzer knew who I was because of @fangraphs when I talked to him a few years back, which was cool. That’s my contribution for the night.
— Mike Axisa (@mikeaxisa) May 12, 2016
Max Scherzer: “The strikeouts are sexy. To strike out 20, that’s sexy.”
— Chris Iott (@Chris_Iott) May 12, 2016
Jonah Pemstein contributed to this post.
August used to cover the Indians for MLB and ohio.com, but now he's here and thinks writing these in the third person is weird. So you can reach me on Twitter @AugustFG_ or e-mail at august.fagerstrom@fangraphs.com.
so glad he’s on my fantasy team
gonna be so shocking when scherzer is the only 30 yr old pitcher who gets a long term deal who delivers fully on it! finally something turns right for our heroes the nats fans!
Five different Tigers struck out three times each.
Brad Ausmus has been involved in three of the five 20K games. He struck out twice against Kerry Wood in 1998, he struck out once (and got a hit) against Roger Clemens in 1996, and now he managed the Tigers against Max Scherzer.
The Tigers broadcast also highlighted a totally unrelated stat which might be my new favorite all-time baseball stat. I did a bunch of research on it. I’ll post about that one later.
Per Play Index, Tigers are the first team to have 5+ players with 3+ SO at least back to 1913.
Here are the 4s:
2015 WSN [vs Kershaw 14SO/8IP]
2014 ATL [vs Jose Fernandez 14SO/8IP]
2012 TBR
2009 TEX [vs Verlander 13SO/7IP]
2007 TEX [vs Santana 17SO/8IP]
2007 TEX [vs Santana 13SO/7IP]
2005 BOS
1997 OAK [vs Randy Johnson 19SO/9IP]
1997 CHW [vs Randy Johnson 19SO/9IP]
1990 LAD
1990 ATL[vs Ramon Martinez 18SO/9IP]
1989 BAL
1989 STL
1986 SEA [vs Clemens 20SO/9IP]
1984 PIT [vs Gooden 16IP/9IP]
1974 BOS [vs Nolan Ryan 19SO/9IP]
1970 OAK
*1968 BOS
1961 CHC [vs Art Mahaffey 17SO/9IP]
* one of the four 3+ SO batters was a pitcher
and then after that, Ausmus, feeling sad and discouraged, went to the bar and struck out a few more times
One of the most remarkable, and yet little-known, performances in baseball history: none of those pitchers mentioned above actually hold the record for most strikeouts in a Major League Baseball game, because, on September 12th, 1962, Tom Cheney struck out 21 batters in throwing a 16-inning complete game. It’s not counted in the record book because he went more than 9 innings, though.
It doesn’t get a lot of credit, it’s true. Washington Senators! Scherzer doesn’t even have the city record for K’s in a game. But he had an opportunity to tie it, and of course more importantly the MLB 9-inning record. It was a joy to watch him pitch tonight.
Tie the city record, break the MLB 9-inning record. Y’all know what I meant!
Upvote Blueyays’ comment if you looked up Tom Cheney (like I just did).
Unless the Baseball-Reference Play Index is flat-out lying to me, that’s not right about Oswalt being the only pitcher to throw more than 96 strikes in a game. According to this, 97+ strikes in one game has happened almost a hundred times since 1961.
Of course, I only know this because I saw the relevant sentence and went, “what?! 96 strikes??? That’s amazing!” And certainly it hasn’t happened too often of late; Brandon Morrow’s outing in 2010 was the only one since Randy Johnson stopped doing it.
Yeah, that’s my bad. I rushed it and botched that one. Thanks! Fixed
No problem. And yeah, the abject lack of not-strikes was the other insane thing.
I presume you meant right-handed batters?
Definitely dumb not loading the lefties in the lineup against him
Ausmus started Mccann 2 games in a row, against pitchers who dominate righties…I get iglesias in this one over romine, romine started the day before. But ya, Salty should have started at least on of those.
Also left our hottest hitter on the bench (castellanos) the whole game. Pinch hit Salty in the 8th for the pitcher, so couldn’t hit for Mccann at the end there. Let’s not forget tigers were down one with a guy on there, almost had this game. Terrible series for Ausmus.
Vmart, 3-4 with no strikeouts. He’s laughing at the rest of his team right now.
Max Scherzer: “The strikeouts are sexy. To strike out 20, that’s sexy.”
Noah Syndergaard: “Chicks dig the long ball.”
🙂
Posted an another forum… 13 MLB players with 350+ career HRs, had less than three career HRs through their age 23 seasons.
Of them:
Ryan Howard was 655 days odler than Syndergaard when he hit his third MLN HR. Norm Cash was 429 days older; Andres Galarraga 406; Mike Piazza 335; Jason Giambi 328…
I’ll just point out, that, with the 100 pitch minimum, that might exclude a lot of Greg Maddux games from consideration. I recall him routinely pitching complete games with less than 100 pitches.
Such as here: http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/7/25/5937383/greg-maddux-best-pitched-games-braves-cubs
The Madduxiest game ever
Date: July 22, 1997
Teams: Braves at Cubs
Time of game: 2:07
Pitches: 76
Strikes: 63
82.9% strike rate, which would put him at the top spot.
wait
greg maddux threw a complete game in 76 pitches?
did he just bean every hitter and force a forfeit or something?
You obviously don’t remember who the Cubs had for offense in 1997