A Master At Work

Sometimes you just sit back and watch a master work. You take in his brilliance, the scope of his achievement and you find that you are not so much watching as staring in disbelief.

So it was on Wednesday night when Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer tied a major league record with 20 strikeouts in nine innings in a 3-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

The numbers are staggering. In the first six innings (that’s 18 outs, for those of you keeping score at home), he struck out 13 batters and got six of those on three pitches. You can’t be much more efficient than that.

He went into the ninth inning with 18 and would have had to strike out the side again (he did it in the eighth inning) to break the record held by such luminaries as Roger Clemens (who did it twice), Kerry Wood and Randy Johnson. He gave up a lead-off home run, got a strikeout, gave up a single, fanned another batter and then induced a weak groundout to end the game.

Oddly, the record for strikeouts in a game was set by another Washington pitcher – Tom Cheney of the old Senators. He punched out 21 over 16 innings in 1962. He needed 228 pitches to do it; Scherzer threw 119 and got five of the last six outs on strikeouts.

Amazing performance. For another reason as well. In his last outing, Scherzer gave up four home runs. On this night he struck out five individual batters three times each.

Way to go. Way to throw.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman