June 9, 2010

The Rarity

The Day by Day Database goes back to 1957. In that time, pitchers threw 349 games in which they struck out 14 or more batters in less than nine innings or less. In 61 of those games, the pitcher did not issue a walk. That’s 17% of the games, so what Stephen Strasburg accomplished was rare, but not terribly so. However, look at the list of the pitcher who reached those levels of high strikeouts with no walks:

Pitcher Number of 14+K, 0 BB Games
Randy Johnson 8
Roger Clemens 7
Pedro Martinez 5
Johan Santana 2
Dwight Gooden 2
Sam McDowell 2
Curt Schilling 2
Mike Scott 2
Fergie Jenkins 2
Larry Dierker 2

The top three on the list, three of the greatest pitchers of the previous generation, account for 1/3 of these games. Every name on this list is recognized as an outstanding pitcher. If you go down the rest of the list of the pitcher who did it once, you see names like Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Mark Prior, John Smoltz, Mike Mussina and Bert Blyleven. Yes, there are a few pitchers who were not in the great category like Sterling Hitchcock and Bobby Witt. For the most part, the list contains the best power/control pitchers of the last 50 years, and Strasburg joined it with one major league start.

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