Swing and a Miss | Baseball Prospectus

“Respect it. Respect it on the market!”

The 9,901 people who discovered their manner inside loandepot Park final Tuesday had been unaware historical past had been made in the course of the seventh inning. That was when Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara broke Miami’s franchise strikeout file, lastly surpassing the immortal Ricky Nolasco with whiff #1,002. Sandy’s supervisor Andy McCullough in addition to his teammates had been incredulous when the scoreboard didn’t acknowledge the accomplishment and, due to this fact, the “crowd” didn’t a lot react to the punchout. Finally, the Marlins scoreboard revealed the milestone, resulting in acceptable cheers.

Marlins coloration analyst Tommy Hutton didn’t look after the delay. “See, the issue I’ve a lot of the followers right here tonight ought to know that with out having to take a look at the scoreboard,” he stated on the air. “It wasn’t put up on the scoreboard immediately, which it ought to have been. And quite a lot of followers who got here right here ought to have identified it anyway. Little issues like that irritate me.” 

This acquired us to considering: has the accomplishment of breaking a franchise’s strikeout file been an enormous deal within the earlier 29 cases? 

Nicely, generally it wasn’t even talked about within the newspapers as a result of the franchise itself was shiny and new. Tom Seaver holds the all-time Mets file for strikeouts—he set the file on July 19, 1968, surpassing Al Jackson’s Ok whole. It was solely the eighth yr of the Mets’ existence although, so it wasn’t information. A newer and ridiculous instance was when Randy Johnson broke the Diamondbacks’ file. He did it on Could 8, 1999, 5 weeks into his Arizona profession. Enjoyable truth: he surpassed Andy Benes, who additionally held, then misplaced, the San Diego Padres’ strikeout chief designation eight years later to Jake Peavy.

By then it was 2007, and Peavy acquired a blurb within the paper. Regardless that the sport was performed at Petco Park, the Padres’ dwelling yard, there wasn’t a single point out of the sport being momentarily stopped or of Peavy getting any type of acknowledgment from the gang or the videoboard. 

That’s one other factor: for no matter cause a lot of the documented cases of a franchise strikeout file being damaged have occurred on the street, the place it’s by no means going to be celebrated. On July 20, 1990, Roger Clemens handed the one and solely Cy Younger for many whiffs transformed as a member of the Boston Purple Sox when he fanned Invoice Pecota. This acquired talked about on a cheeky video recap of that day’s doubleheader in Kansas Metropolis, and in a paragraph that exposed each Clemens’ accomplishment and the truth that George Brett handed Lou Gehrig for fifteenth all-time in doubles. However there was no stopping of the competition, nor, so far as I can inform, was there some type of ceremony when the Purple Sox returned to Fenway Park. 

Andy Pettitte broke Whitey Ford’s strikeout mark as a Yankee on July 1, 2013 in Minnesota. It was acknowledged by the media—not at Goal Subject. Why would they? (It didn’t assist that there was some controversy over whether or not Ford punched out 1,956 victims or 1,957—both manner, Pettitte surpassed each of these numbers.)

On April 23, 2016, “King” Felix Hernandez broke the Mariners strikeout file, passing Randy Johnson (in fact). He struck out Rafael Ortega within the 1st inning on a 2-2 changeup. Whereas the powers that be had Felix roll the ball into the dugout for safekeeping, and the Mariners announcers acknowledged the second, the sport was performed in Anaheim, so [shrug emoji].

July 3, 1987 was the day Nolan Ryan broke the Astros’ file (13 years after he turned the Angels’ strikeout champion). The Related Press targeted extra on the truth that Ryan had misplaced his fourth consecutive sport, and his file was now a putrid 4-9. (His ERA wasn’t talked about.) The sport was performed in Philadelphia.

Stephen Strasburg set the Nationals/Expos Ok file on August 9, 2019. However that was at Citi Subject in an eventual 7-6 walk-off loss. Strasburg appeared chill about the entire thing when he was requested about passing Steve Rogers’ mark after the sport. “I wasn’t actually interested by it,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what was actually taking place. I’m simply going to proceed to work laborious and get higher.”

German Marquez broke his pal Jorge De La Rosa’s Rockies primary spot on a July 14, 2024 contest in opposition to the Mets, additionally at Citi Subject. The massive story that day although was Marquez returning to MLB motion after present process Tommy John surgical procedure and lacking 445 days. 

Moreover the Miami incident from final week, there are 4 documented cases the place the franchise strikeout file was damaged at dwelling, to differing reactions. Wrigley Subject seemingly didn’t care on a 1971 afternoon when Ferguson Jenkins changed Jack Taylor because the Cubs’ #1 strikeout king. It was September 1st and the staff was already out of the pennant race, to be honest. 

On a sunny afternoon in the course of the summer time of 2007, John Smoltz leapfrogged over Phil Niekro as Atlanta’s all-time strikeout man. Smoltz appeared to give a perfunctory doffing of his cap to the sparse crowd as he marched straight into the clubhouse following out quantity three. It’s unclear if stated viewers knew what had simply occurred. 

When Clayton Kershaw struck out Spencer Torkelson on April 30, 2022 at Dodger Stadium, he acquired an enormous ovation. Of the extended cheers, Kershaw stated, “I didn’t anticipate it.” 

There’s another occasion the place a pitcher broke his franchise’s strikeout file at dwelling and obtained some love. It was form of awkward although. On September 8, 2014 in Milwaukee, Yovani Gallardo served up back-to-back dwelling runs earlier than fanning Jarrod Saltalamacchia within the second inning. Nonetheless, the gang applauded greater than standard for any previous strikeout. 

It was in opposition to the Marlins. Tommy Hutton was within the visiting staff’s announcers sales space. 

All we find out about Cleveland’s file is that Bob Feller broke it sooner or later in 1941. There was no point out of it in any newspaper from what I may inform. There was nonetheless an acknowledgment when he acquired previous the 1,000 profession punchies mark. Feller had some attention-grabbing issues to say. 

Strikeouts look all proper within the file guide, however I’m extra involved about victories. Let the previous boys maintain their strikeout information. Once I get a protected lead in future video games, I’m going to ease up. There isn’t a lot sense in burning the ball over the plate in a one-sided sport. The subsequent time you begin you’re prone to want all of your energy to win.