State Of The State

Three fours and a six, right now (was hoping to wake up to four of a kind.) None of these teams are cashing yet, and some of them have ratios so destroyed, it’ll be a tight needle to thread, but we can do it. At least they’re all in contention now, thanks in part to Lance Lynn’s 16! Ks last night. How odd to have the player with the most strikeouts in a game this year on all four teams, and yet he’s destroying my ERA and WHIP.

This actually reminds me of an old Twitter poll I posted:

Most people voted for the larger sample, but they were dead wrong. Look at the list of players who struck out 18 in a (nine-inning) game from 20th century onward:

It’s a who’s who of all-time greats with some very goods (at peak) like Kerry Wood, Corey Kluber, David Cone and Ron Guidry sprinkled in. The 220Ks-in-season club has a much higher percentage of one-hit wonders in it.

Of course, there’s a massive difference between 16 and 18. It’s not just two strikeouts, but probably an entire standard deviation higher from the one K per inning or so baseline we expect these days.

Striking out 16 in a game is still an unfakeable display of skill, just probably not enough of one portend the turnaround he’d need to salvage his season.