Max Scherzer annihilated his former team on Wednesday night, tying an MLB record held by three men by striking out 20 Detroit Tigers hitters in a 3-2 Washington Nationals win.
The feat had been accomplished four times, by Roger Clemens twice, Kerry Wood, and most recently, Randy Johnson. Johnson was the last pitcher to strike out 20 hitters in a game, doing it in 2001 against the Reds.
On Twitter after the game, Wood welcomed Scherzer to the fraternity.
Congratulations to @Max_Scherzer on an impressive and dominant performance tonight. Welcome to the club! #Filthy
— Kerry Wood (@KerryWood) May 12, 2016
Scherzer also becomes just the seventh pitcher to record multiple 17 strikeout games (and yes, I’m aware that’s an arbitrary endpoint) during his career, joining Clemens, Bob Feller, Johnson, Sandy Koufax, Pedro Martinez, and Nolan Ryan.
During his start, Scherzer threw 119 pitches, a whopping 96 of them for strikes. He didn’t walk a hitter, and threw just 23 balls. That’s right – 23 balls, 20 strikeouts.
However, his game score of 87 was the lowest by any pitcher in a 20 strikeout game because of the six hits and two runs (both on solo homers) that he allowed. Sadly for Scherzer, his game isn’t even in the top five for game score this year – six starts have finished with a game score of at least 89.
Pitchers have hit 119 pitches in a start five times this season, including Scherzer’s teammate Tanner Roark on April 23rd. The high pitch count in a start this season is 123, thrown by Jeff Samardzija on Sunday against the Rockies.
Through the first 41 starts of Scherzer’s career with the Nationals, he’s now thrown two no-hitters (and one of those was one batter away from a perfect game) and a 20 strikeout game – that’s impressive. Only Johnson has recorded both a no-hitter and a 20 strikeout game during his career.
Down the road, that seven-year, $210 million contract might get ugly, but right now, it’s working out alright for the Nationals.
(note for the sticklers: Tom Cheney also struck out 20 hitters in a game for the 1962 Washington Senators, but he did it in 16 innings)
