On Strike
Posted by Sky on November 5, 2007
In honor (?) of the writers strike that officially started today in Hollywood, I present a list of pitchers who have thrown the most strikes in a singles game:
Cnt Player Date Tm Opp GmReslt App,Dec IP H R ER BB SO HR Pit **Str** GmSc IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP ERA +----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+-------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+ 1 Sandy Koufax 1961-09-20 LAD CHC W 3-2 CG 13 ,W 13 7 2 2 3 15 1 205 128 97 50 44 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 1.38 2 Herm Wehmeier 1957-05-02 STL @BRO W 3-2 GS-12 12 9 2 2 4 12 0 203 128 84 49 45 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 1 1.50 3 Jay Hook 1960-05-18 CIN LAD W 5-4 GS-11 11 10 4 4 2 10 0 188 122 69 43 39 2 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 3.27 4 Robin Roberts 1957-04-16 PHI BRO L 6-7 CG 12 ,L 12 12 7 7 4 8 3 190 121 54 51 46 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 5.25 5 Sandy Koufax 1963-05-15 LAD PHI W 3-2 CG 12 ,W 12 11 2 2 0 12 0 164 118 84 47 45 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.50 6 Sandy Koufax 1960-05-28 LAD @CHC L 3-4 GS-14 ,L 13 3 4 3 9 15 1 193 117 93 49 39 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 2.08 7 Don Drysdale 1959-05-22 LAD SFG W 2-1 CG 13 ,W 13 6 1 1 2 11 0 173 112 100 47 44 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.69 8 Don Drysdale 1959-05-05 LAD @MLN L 2-3 GS-11 11 10 2 2 2 9 0 175 112 76 45 41 4 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1.64 9 Randy Johnson 1992-09-27 SEA @TEX L 2-3 GS-8 8 6 2 2 4 18 0 160 111 76 34 30 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2.25 10 Billy O'Dell 1962-04-16 SFG LAD W 19-8 CG 9 ,W 9 15 8 6 4 4 1 172 111 29 47 41 3 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 6.00 11 Randy Johnson 1995-07-07 SEA @CLE W 5-3 CG 9 ,W 9 8 3 2 0 13 0 160 110 74 34 34 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 2.00 12 Randy Johnson 2000-07-30 ARI @FLA L 3-4 GS-7 7 7 2 2 1 11 1 162 109 65 29 28 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 1 2.57
37 Tim Wakefield 1996-06-10 BOS @CHW L 2-8 CG 8 ,L 8 16 8 6 3 0 1 158 103 19 43 40 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 6.75
There's some interesting information in that list:
- Sandy Koufax dominates the top spots, placing in a tie for 1st, plus 5th and 6th. Huh, wasn't his career cut short by arm issues or something like that?
- Randy Johnson has the best performance for a non-extra innings game, and he only pitched 8 innings. That 18 strikeout performance was just awesome.
- At number five on the list, Koufax threw 118 of 164 pitches for strikes -- that's 72%.
- Tim Wakefield holds the record for most strikes thrown in a game without recording a strikeout: 103
- In total, a pitcher has thrown at least 100 strikes 63 different times. Nine were by Koufax, eight were by Don Drysdale, and seven were by Randy Johnson. Nolan Ryan only did it twice. Randy Johnson needed the fewest number of pitches to do it -- 133 (76%).
November 5th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I can't believe that anybody from the last 30 years makes the list...100 strikes in a game is a TON. Cool list.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I would have expected to see Roger Clemens' and Kerry Woods' 20K games on such a list.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Looks like in Billy O'Dell's case, you can do it with subpar stuff. You just have to find the plate, face patient hitters, and rely on awesome run support.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Game scores are not as high as I would expect, overall. Do you think that's because, if you throw a lot of strikes in a game, there will generally be more batted balls?
November 5th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
That's a great point, Andrew. I also noticed the low game scores. It opens up a whole area of discussion about what makes a successfully-pitched game. We know that a lot of successful pitchers throw intentional balls a bit outside the strike zone just to set up subsequent strikes--to induce either swings and misses or poor contact on batted balls. It could be that on average, games with really high game scores have fewer strikes thrown. Gives me an idea for a post....
November 5th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
In his 20-strikeout game, Kerry Wood threw 84 of 122 pitches for strikes. One of Clemens' games wasn't charted, and in the other one he threw 101 of 151 pitches for strikes. Looking through the list of top strikeout games, about half don't have pitch data. How come I'd never heard of Tom Cheney's 21-strikeout game? Probably because it took him 16 innings.
I think the Game Scores aren't overly impressive because we're not filtering based on percentage of strikes, just raw totals. Plus, it's difficult to be thoroughly effective over 10+ innings.
There's probably something to throwing too many strikes, especially when your stuff isn't great. You want hitters to know you CAN throw a strike, but also get them to swing at stuff they can't hit hard. Too many strikes means too many homeruns for most pitchers.
November 5th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Very interesting. I'm curious as to most balls (non-strikes) thrown in a game.
Afterall, in order to rank high in this category, a pitcher would theoretically have to be effective enough to pitch deep into the game.
November 5th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Just missing the cut: Orel Hershiser on Oct 1, 1989: 108 strikes thrown in an 11-inning, 169-pitch effort.
This performance is widely considered the climax of the wear and tear on Orel's arm, after 3 consecutive seasons
of 250+ IP. Less than a month into the 1990 season, he tore his rotator cuff and missed most of the next two seasons.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
"Sandy Koufax dominates the top spots, placing in a tie for 1st, plus 5th and 6th. Huh, wasn’t his career cut short by arm issues or something like that?"
I thought Koufax's arm troubles stemmed from tearing apart the cartilage in his pitching arm when he jammed it while diving back into 2nd base in a 1964 game. Although, I can't imagine he could have continued to toss 300+ IP seasons much longer even without the injury.
November 5th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Do I correctly assume that this list is subject to the caveat that it only covers those games for which pitch counts are currently Retrosheet available, which is not all games since 1957 and few or none before 1957?
November 5th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Birtelcom, I was just coming on to post that. Sky definitely should have clarified that pitch counts are only available on B-R since about 1990, and for random games (mostly late '50s-early '60s Dodgers) prior to that.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Hmm, interesting list.
I wonder what the most consecutive strikes a pitcher has thrown is? That would take amazing control.
November 6th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Check out this game by Curt Schilling...
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/COL/COL200209200.shtml
114 pitches, *94 STRIKES*, and he got SHELLED. The 94 strikes are the most strikes "ever" thrown with a total pitch count of 120 or less.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
[...] strike that officially started yesterday in Hollywood, I presented a list of the pitchers who threw the most strikes in a single game. Here are two teaser bits of [...]