Wednesday, April 23 (yesterday) saw four more ten strikeout games in the majors. Starters are throwing these often, especially compare to other years early in the season.

The data looks from 1962 on, since that was the first year both leagues played a 162 game schedule. Note that in the mid 1960s this statistic reached it’s peak. Note that this number started to come down after 1966, but before the redefinition of the strike zone in 1969. I don’t know why, but I suspect it had something to do with the Sandy Koufax injury and MLB starting to fight the low offense of the era.

We still have a week left in the month, so we’ll see if these numbers hold up for all of April.