Fewest career strikeouts for a guy with a 5+ strikeout game
Posted by Andy on June 16, 2011
Here are the players with the fewest career strikeouts who have at least one 5+ strikeout game as a batter:
| Rk | Player | SO | From | To | Age | G | PA | AB | BB | Pos | Tm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ray Jarvis | 19 | 1969 | 1970 | 23-24 | 44 | 35 | 29 | 1 | /*1 | BOS |
| 2 | Clay Hensley | 41 | 2005 | 2011 | 25-31 | 196 | 83 | 72 | 3 | *1 | SDP-FLA |
| 3 | Dave Stegman | 55 | 1978 | 1984 | 24-30 | 172 | 361 | 320 | 31 | /*897D | DET-NYY-CHW |
| 4 | Bob Sadowski | 57 | 1963 | 1966 | 25-28 | 115 | 144 | 129 | 2 | *1 | MLN-BOS |
| 5 | Scott Perry | 88 | 1915 | 1921 | 24-30 | 132 | 325 | 296 | 12 | *1 | SLB-CHC-CIN-PHA |
| 6 | Andy Phillips | 110 | 2004 | 2008 | 27-31 | 259 | 604 | 557 | 34 | *3/5D47 | NYY-TOT |
| 7 | Roberto Mejia | 118 | 1993 | 1997 | 21-25 | 133 | 450 | 411 | 28 | *4/79 | COL-STL |
| 8 | Johnny Broaca | 119 | 1934 | 1939 | 24-29 | 121 | 277 | 254 | 10 | *1 | NYY-CLE |
| 9 | Joey Meyer | 124 | 1988 | 1989 | 26-27 | 156 | 516 | 474 | 35 | /*D3 | MIL |
| 10 | Ted Lilly | 129 | 1999 | 2011 | 23-35 | 325 | 331 | 293 | 7 | *1 | MON-OAK-NYY-TOR-CHC-TOT-LAD |
| 11 | Sandy Valdespino | 129 | 1965 | 1971 | 26-32 | 383 | 838 | 765 | 57 | *7/9 | MIN-ATL-TOT-MIL-KCR |
| 12 | Justin Smoak | 144 | 2010 | 2011 | 23-24 | 161 | 652 | 570 | 77 | *3/D | TOT-SEA |
| 13 | Jason Heyward | 162 | 2010 | 2011 | 20-21 | 187 | 784 | 660 | 111 | *9 | ATL |
| 14 | Kevin Bell | 165 | 1976 | 1982 | 20-26 | 297 | 818 | 726 | 70 | *5/6D7 | CHW-OAK |
| 15 | Steve Whitaker | 174 | 1966 | 1970 | 23-27 | 266 | 824 | 758 | 54 | 9/78 | NYY-SEP-SFG |
A lot of these guys are pitchers. A few are also active so eventually they'll come off this list.
Among position players, the "winner" is Dave Stegman, who was the second overall pick in the secondary June 1976 draft.
June 16th, 2011 at 7:49 am
I heard an announcer earlier this season - it may have been Ralph Kiner - describe 3K as a "hat trick," 4 as a "golden sombrero" and 5 as a "ticket to AAA."
June 16th, 2011 at 8:33 am
Have any players ever recorded 6 strikeouts in one game? If so, who are they?
June 16th, 2011 at 8:47 am
Jarvis's 5 K game came after he entered the game as a relief pitcher.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS196904200.shtml
June 16th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Clay Hensley's 5 strikeouts came in the same game his teammate Brian Giles drew 5 walks...
June 16th, 2011 at 9:46 am
Pretty sure Geoff Jenkins pulled off the 6-trick once in extra innings. I call that the diamond sombrero.
June 16th, 2011 at 10:35 am
@2, Dan, re: batters with 6 Ks in a game (since 1919):
-- It has never been done in a 9-inning game.
-- The only player to strike out 6 times and in all of his PAs was Alex Gonzalez (the retired SS, not the active Atlanta SS) on 1998-09-09:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR199809090.shtml
-- Geoff Jenkins was the last man with 6 Ks in a game, on 2004-06-08:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ANA/ANA200406080.shtml
(The Brewers struck out 26 times in 17 innings, the most Ks by any team since 1919, but still won the game, 1-0.)
June 16th, 2011 at 11:05 am
Among the 120 times a player has struck out 5 times in a game (since 1919), only 5 have recorded a positive WPA (for the 112 games where WPA is known), lead by Ray Lankford (WPA=0.333, 1998-08-08) and Sammy Sosa (WPA=.178, 2000-06-09); they both hit a home run in addition to the strikeouts, and Lankford added a single. They also have struck out 5 times in a game most often: Sosa 4 times and Lankford 3 times.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:18 am
Eight players, led by Sammy Sosa, have two or more career five strikeout games.
As Whiz pointed out above, Sosa leads with four and Lankford has three, with Jim Thome, Ron Swoboda, Richie Sexson, George Scott, Deron Johnson and Dick Allen all doing it twice.
Reggie Jackson (23) leads in four strikeout games, followed, surprisingly, by Bo Jackson with 19.
Surprising in the fact he only played 694 career games.
I know a lot of people, and rightfully so, were awed by Jackson's athletic ability and physical appearance, but the truth is he wasn't a very good baseball player.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Not sure how to search this, but crossreferencing two tables I tried to determine the "opposite" of Andy's post:
Most career Ks without a 5 K game:
Galarraga with 2003 (4th all-time) - 15 4K games
Most career Ks without a 4 K game - this one may have some holes in it because I only looked at those with 20+ 3K games (about 600 players), then checked to see if their K / games was equal to 3:
Yaz with 1393 (75th all-time) - 25 3K games
Aaron with 1383 (79th) - amazing he only had 20 3K games in his career
Banks with 1236 (126th) - 31 3K games
Walker with 1231 (130th) - 30 3K games
June 16th, 2011 at 11:37 am
Bo Jackson not very good? He did have a career OPS+ of 112...same as Matt WIlliams, Ron Gant, Cal Ripken, Trot Nixon, Sam Rice, and a bunch of others....not a super star for sure, but in my book certainly better than "not very good".
June 16th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Bo Jackson was a pretty damn good baseball player for a guy who couldn't devote more than half of his time to the sport.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
"He did have a career OPS+ of 112"
Carries no weight with me.
At least not as much as a career .307 OBP or 196 K's per 162 games played.
And three of the five players on your list used steriods, so even THEIR OPS+ are tainted.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
And he was continuing to improve. Cutting down on his strikeouts, hitting for a better average, drawing a few more walks. Would have been interesting to see how good he could have become.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Dave Stegman was a good fielder with a lot of range in CF in his limited time with the Tigers but couldn't hit well enough to hold a MLB job.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Chuck @12,
If you want to argue that a player wasn't a very good baseball player and you don't like OPS+ for unspecified reasons, then you ought to look at some other comprehensive (or at least offensively comprehensive) statistic. Use WAR or oWAR or offensive winning percentage or something comprehensive. To just pick out the weak aspects of Bo Jackson's game is not persuasive at all.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
"To just pick out the weak aspects of Bo Jackson's game is not persuasive at all."
And WAR is?
June 16th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Baseball is not a game for "athletes", per se.
Almost without exception, most of the "multi-sport" players perform better in a sport than in baseball.
I still wake up at night sometimes, in a cold sweat, to nightmares of watching Michael Jordan "play" baseball.
June 16th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
I hate Jordan, but I thought his performance was impressive, considering how long it had been since he'd played. AA is tough competition.
June 16th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
While 'we're not athletes...we're baseball players' is amusing I can't endorse the idea that ballplayers are not athletes. Are all of them elite? No, of course. Any professional sport where 40 year old men have value and can compete are low on the athleticism scale, but that is why they are pitchers and DH's.
But you are telling me Hasheem Thabeet or Brian Scallabrine's corpses are any more/less athletes because they play basketball? What about hockey goalies or placekickers in football?
That said:
a) I do get a chuckle when announcers do the whole 'people don't know how much of an athlete he is' when a pitcher fields a ball hit up the middle. 🙂
b) So where does Drew Henson's performance lean? 1-9 H/AB or 64.2 passer rating 🙂
June 16th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Having Justin Smoak and Jason Heyward on the list is a bit "misleading," since the reader's thoughts are a bit led by the title to think it's a list of players who were regarded as decent contact hitters but had a really bad day! None of these guys really have a lot of PAs. I think the leader only has 824 PAs.
June 16th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
I will not stand idly by while The Great Vincent Edward Jackson is besmirched.
Bo was improving in every area pretty much every year (in addition to being moved to centerfield instead of left field), and even after his injury, he still had his power.
Moreover, unlike every other baseball player, Bo had zero opportunity to improve his baseball skills in the offseason. Every year he was coming into the season and improving basically off the fact he had played real games 7 months earlier and had swung the bat a bit in Spring Training. Honestly, that is the sort of lack of immersion in the game that Josh Hamilton was being lauded for during Josh's breakout '08 season.
Based upon his immense power, immense speed, and immense outfield arm, in a world where Bo Jackson, after spurning the Bucs in the NFL Draft, never plays another game of football I have absolutely no trouble believing that not only would he have been a stellar and star centerfielder (crazy arm, crazy range), but that he would've been a top slugger (am I really supposed to believe that Bo couldn't absolutely hit 400 career homers in say a 17 year career, being conservative about it? [Great numbers for a CF, BTW]), and a great base-stealer. Plus he had ton of personality for a guy that didn't say much and he absolutely left his peers in awe (listen to anyone talk about the '89 ASG or any other iconic Bo plays).
OPS+ of 128 and 142 his last two full seasons (and in that 142 season he got injured in a game (diving for a ball hit by Deion Sanders [!!!]) where he hit three homers against the Yanks and missed 28 days--before returning to hit a homer in his first AB to tie the MLB record of 4HRs in 4PAs).
I'm sorry, I know I was a huge Bo fan when I was a kid but the guy was amazing and I absolutely 100% believe that if he had only played MLB or NFL after college (and not gotten a freak injury) he'd have made a Pro Football Hall of Fame speech a few years back, or would be making a Baseball Hall of Fame speech right about now.
Bo had the genes and work ethic to have to immense power and ridiculous muscles that these other guys from the steroid era cheated to get.
And that's the end of my Bo rant.
In case anyone is wondering, if you besmirch Frank Thomas I will go on another rant. Those are my two guys that I defend, rationally or not, until the bitter end.
June 16th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
"In case anyone is wondering, if you besmirch Frank Thomas I will go on another rant."
Thomas and Albert Belle were 2 big reasons I'd watch AL baseball in the 90s, so there's no besmirching from me. In fact, I think many tend to underrate Thomas. There are those who actually think he needed to get to 500 home runs to have a shot at the HOF.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
"There are those who actually think he needed to get to 500 home runs to have a shot at the HOF."
He ain't in yet.