Pitchers Who Most Often Strike Out 10 or More in a Game

Which starting pitchers most often struck out 10 or more hitters in a game in 2022? Who accomplished this feat in the greatest percentage of their starts?

Mar 22, 2023

Issue #73

I’ve recently written several articles with various analyses that might be helpful for anyone who plays daily fantasy baseball or who makes various kinds of baseball proposition bets. I’ve covered who are the Best Hitters Against Power, Finesse, Flyball, and Groundball Pitchers, who hits the best against the most hittable starting pitchers, who hits the best against the most HR-prone pitchers, who hits the best as a visitor at each ballpark, and which hitters have the most pronounced other splits.

All of those write-ups were about hitters, so what about pitchers? Something I enjoyed doing last season was betting on starting pitcher strikeouts per game. In some cases I would bet the over/under: this means that if the over/under on Max Scherzer for a particular game was 7.5 strikeouts, then I might bet the over if I thought he’d get 8 or more strikeouts, or bet the under if I thought he might get 7 or fewer strikeouts.

Another way to bet on starting pitcher strikeouts is to bet on whether he’ll get over any particular number of strikeouts, with the odds increasing significantly with each higher total. Sometimes I’d bet on a pitcher just getting over 7 or 8 strikeouts, but it would get more interesting if I went with something more rare, like getting 10 or more strikeouts.

How rare was 10 or more strikeouts by a starting pitcher in 2022? As it turns out, it happened 224 times (during the regular season; this article isn’t covering the postseason.) There were 85 different starting pitchers to accomplish the feat—with some names surprising me a bit as I looked back over the records.

Who had the most 10+ strikeout games as a starter in 2022?

If asked this question, my first several guesses would all have been wrong. Gerrit Cole, since he led the majors in strikeouts with 257? Nope. Shohei Ohtani, because he had that incredible period from late May through the end of July? Nope. Sandy Alcantara, because he most often pitched the most innings, and so even if he didn’t have as high of a K-rate, he would more often reach at least 10 in a game? Nope.

The answer is Carlos Rodón, with 11 games of 10+ strikeouts. He admittedly had the third most strikeouts in all of baseball with 237, behind Cole’s total and Corbin Burnes’ 243. Rodón’s total was spread across two fewer games started (31) than the 33 that Cole and Burnes each started, though Cole’s 7.79 K/GS still works out to be a bit higher than Rodon’s 7.65 (neither led MLB in that category—more on that momentarily.)

Here are the 2022 leaders in games started with 10+ strikeouts:

11 - Carlos Rodón
10 - Shohei Ohtani
9 - Gerrit Cole
9 - Corbin Burnes
7 - Brandon Woodruff
7 - Robbie Ray
6 - Sandy Alcantara
6 - Max Scherzer
6 - Spencer Strider
5 - Aaron Nola
5 - Charlie Morton
5 - Jacob deGrom
5 - Blake Snell

Of course, not all of these 10+ K games were equally impressive. In some cases the starting pitcher in question gave up a few runs, sometimes even getting tagged with the loss. And in some of the games the pitcher had significantly more than 10 strikeouts—the highest total in 2022 was Atlanta’s Spencer Strider who had 16 K on September 1 against the Rockies. Here is the breakdown by K total for these 224 games of 10 or more:

1 - 16 strikeouts
5 - 14 strikeouts
13 - 13 strikeouts
32 - 12 strikeouts
67 - 11 strikeouts
106 - 10 strikeouts

Yes, in 2022 a starting pitcher notched 13 strikeouts in a game 13 times. Weird.

I noted that Strider had the one game with 16 strikeouts. The five guys who had 14 K in a game were (with their total number of 10+ games):

Corbin Burnes (9)
Gerrit Cole (9)
Sandy Alcantara (6)
Cristian Javier (3)
Triston McKenzie (3)

Of course, for those looking to wager on whether a pitcher will surpass 10 strikeouts in a game, getting 12 or 14 or more doesn’t matter: you win the bet as long as the pitcher reaches 10.

Who had 10+ strikeouts in the highest % of his starts?

So in thinking about the likelihood of a starting pitcher getting 10+ strikeouts in a game, a key question is: In what percentage of his starts does he accomplish this? These days, a pretty healthy starter for an entire season will start 30-33 games. In the first list above, two pitchers didn’t come close to reaching that many starts in 2022: Spencer Strider because he started the season coming out of the bullpen, and Jacob deGrom because he was injured for much of the year.

Here are the leaders in % of games started with 10+ strikeouts in 2022:

Jacob deGrom - 45% (5 of 11)
Shohei Ohtani - 36% (10 of 28)
Carlos Rodón - 35% (11 of 31)
Spencer Strider - 30% (6 of 20)
Gerrit Cole - 27% (9 of 33)
Corbin Burnes - 27% (9 of 33)
Brandon Woodruff - 26% (7 of 27)
Max Scherzer - 26% (6 of 23)
Robbie Ray - 22% (7 of 32)
Blake Snell - 21% (5 of 24)
Andrew Heaney - 21% (3 of 14)
Sandy Alcantara - 19% (6 of 32)
Jesús Luzardo - 17% (3 of 18)
Charlie Morton - 16% (5 of 31)
Aaron Nola - 16% (5 of 32)
MacKenzie Gore - 15% (2 of 13)

So deGrom leads this list, notching 10+ strikeouts in almost half of his starts. The three others here with fewer than 20 starts are also interesting: Andrew Heaney, Jesús Luzardo, and especially MacKenzie Gore.

Gore was 18 years old when he was the 3rd overall pick by the Padres in the 2017 draft. After working his way up through the minors, he was a 23 year old rookie for the Padres in 2022. He started the year strong, including his two 10-strikeout games on April 27th against the Reds and then June 4th against the Brewers. At that time he had a 1.50 ERA with 57 K in 48 IP. But then he was hit hard in consecutive games against the Rockies (one in Colorado). His results were mixed in a few more games before he was placed on the injured list with elbow inflammation on July 26, and then soon after was traded to the Nationals as part of the package that brought star hitters Juan Soto and Josh Bell to San Diego. Gore only pitched in the minors the rest of the season, and so far this spring has not done very well, allowing 21 hits in 14 innings with only 9 K and a 7.07 ERA. It will be interesting to see how he does once the regular season gets underway.

Who had the most strikeouts per start in 2022?

Another factor in thinking about betting on pitcher strikeout total in a game is to look at their strikeouts per start. Not surprisingly, deGrom leads this list as well:

Jacob deGrom - 9.27 K/GS (102 K in 11 GS)
Spencer Strider - 8.25 (165 in 20)
Shohei Ohtani - 7.82 (219 in 28)
Gerrit Cole - 7.79 (257 in 33)
Carlos Rodón - 7.65 (237 in 31)
Max Scherzer - 7.52 (172 in 23)
Corbin Burnes - 7.36 (243 in 33)
Aaron Nola - 7.34 (235 in 32)
Blake Snell - 7.13 (171 in 24)
Dylan Cease - 7.09 (227 in 32)
Brandon Woodruff - 7.04 (190 in 27)

Remember that the above is only considering each pitcher’s strikeouts in the games they started. For most of the names above, that is all of the games they pitched in. But as mentioned earlier, Strider started the season as a reliever, so his total strikeouts on the year was 202, not the 165 shown above which came in his 20 games started.

Another factor to consider here is how many innings a particular starter usually throws. Some guys are more durable, some have managers who are more or less likely to take them out early, and so on. Sandy Alcantara led all starters in 2022 in both complete games with 6, and in average IP per game started with 7.13. That was way ahead of Framber Valdez’ 6.49, Yu Darvish’s 6.47, Shane Bieber’s 6.45, or Aaron Nola’s 6.41. The likelihood that a starter will go deep into a particular game is definitely a consideration in whether he might reach 10+ strikeouts. Indeed, in five out of the six games in which Alcantara had ten or more strikeouts he pitched 8 or more innings, with only one game being a 10 K effort in 6 IP.

The average number of innings pitched in all 224 games with 10+ strikeouts in 2022 was 6.43. So unless we are talking about a guy with a very high K/IP rate (like deGrom, Strider, Rodon, Ohtani, etc.), if I think a starter will get pulled after six innings of work (not to mention less), then I’m not likely going to wager he’ll end up with 10 or more strikeouts that game.

What were some surprises in this analysis?

Besides being reminded of MacKenzie Gore’s excellent start to his rookie campaign, what other surprises arose as I reviewed this data? First, three guys with relatively high strikeout totals on the season had two or fewer games with 10+ strikeouts:

Yu Darvish (2) - 197 strikeouts (6.57 K/GS)
Joe Musgrove (2) - 184 strikeouts (6.13 K/GS)
Alek Manoah (0) - 180 strikeouts (5.81 K/GS)

And short starts wasn’t the reason for any of them: as noted above Darvish’s 6.47 IP/GS was third behind Alcantara and Valdez in 2022. Manoah’s 6.33 was seventh, and even Musgrove’s 6.03 was tied for 20th. These pitchers’ lack of many (or any in the case of Manoah) games with 10+ strikeouts means that their strikeout totals were more consistent. Without taking the time now to calculate the standard deviation for all of these pitchers’ strikeout totals per game (which would really get at their range of results and level of consistency), I’ll just look at the results for two of them, starting with Manoah:

1 GS with 9 K
3 GS with 8 K
7 GS with 7 K
5 GS with 6 K
9 GS with 5 K
1 GS with 3 K
5 GS with 4 K

Yu Darvish had a wider range of results in 2022:

1 GS with 11 K
1 GS with 10 K
5 GS with 9 K
3 GS with 8 K
5 GS with 7 K
6 GS with 6 K
4 GS with 5 K
2 GS with 4 K
2 GS with 3 K
1 GS with 2 K

Here are a few other interesting tidbits from this analysis:

Taijuan Walker recorded his lowest SO/9 rate ever in 2022 at only 7.6, averaging only 4.55 K per game started. And yet he did have three games with 10 K each (plus another two games with 9 K each.)
Kyle Gibson and Jose Berrios had similar strikeout rates to Walker’s, and posted two games with 10+ K each. And Berrios actually recorded 13 strikeouts in each of this two standout games, one against the Twins and one against the Phillies.
The most unlikely 10+ K game of 2022? Several guys with K rates below 4.5 per GS managed to do it once, including Corey Kluber, Adam Wainwright, Drew Rasmussen, Zach Eflin, Cole Irvin, Roansy Contreras, Michael Kopech, and Rich Hill. But the lowest such rate of all was Patrick Corbin's 4.13 K per GS. And yet, on June 28 he managed to strikeout 12 batters in 8 IP. Two reasons why: it was one of only two times that he pitched as many as eight innings, and his Nationals were hosting the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates, who were third in all of baseball in total strikeouts by their batters.
Which team was most often the victim of a 10+ K performance by an opposing starting pitcher? Was it the Angels, who led MLB in strikeouts? Nope, it happened to them 14 times (second most). The answer is the Chicago Cubs, who had 17 games in which the opposing starting pitcher notched 10+ strikeouts.
On the flipside, I would have guessed that the Cleveland Guardians had this happen the least often against them, as they had the fewest total strikeouts by their hitters of any team in 2022. But it happened to them twice -- by former Cleveland hurler Corey Kluber, and by Luis Castillo. The Royals also had it happen to them twice, once by Sonny Gray and once by Shohei Ohtani (a 13-K performance). The team with the fewest such games was the New York Mets—just one, by Charlie Morton. Not a huge surprise I guess, as the Mets did have the third fewest total strikeouts by their batters in 2022.
What about Colorado and infamous Coors Field? They had six games where opposing starting pitchers notched 10+ strikeouts against them—but five were while on the road. The only opposing starter to do it at Coors was Arizona's Zac Gallen.

Of course there are many other factors than the numbers I’ve analyzed here that go into the likelihood of whether a particular starting pitcher will get 10+ strikeouts on a particular day. Weather can be a factor, such as the risk of a rain delay that could lead to a starter who is doing well being removed early. I hinted at ballpark effect above with my comment about Colorado and Coors field. There is the comfort that a pitcher has with a particular park, whether his home field or when visiting. And there are nuances that most fans can’t know like how well is the pitcher feeling that day, how well are the key opposing hitters feeling that day, and so on. But hopefully you found the above analysis interesting, and perhaps helpful for any strikeouts-related betting you might want to do in 2023.

All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites.

Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.

Now Taking the Field