How the Dodgers Quietly Harnessed Baseball’s Strikeout King to Dominate the Game
Sale’s accomplishment, then, is sustaining a near-record rate of strikeouts per nine innings for more than 2,000 innings, certainly worthy of note.
An equally valid definition of “fastest” to reach a strikeout milestone would be how long it took to get there. The pitcher that the 6-foot-6, left-handed Sale surpassed was his boyhood idol: Johnson, a 6-10, left-handed flamethrower who ranks second to Ryan on the career strikeout list with 4,875.
Advertisement
Johnson notched No. 2,500 in inning No. 2,108 — 82 more than it took Sale. But he did so in only his 11th season, five seasons “faster” than Sale.
Post Comment