BP Unfiltered

The Week of Setting Strikeout Records

by Ben Lindbergh

A collection of headlines from the past week:

Rays pitchers break AL record for strikeouts—9/21

Pirates pitching staff sets club strikeouts record—9/25

20 Strikeouts! Zack Greinke, Angels tie MLB records vs. Mariners—9/26

A's hitters set AL strikeout record—9/26

Doug Fister sets AL record with nine straight strikeouts—9/27

Don't know about you, but I'm sensing some sort of pattern here.

Not only is the major-league average strikeout rate of 7.6 per nine innings this season the highest ever, but the increase of 0.5 K/9 since last season, should it hold up over the final week, would be the largest single-season uptick since 1986.

Note: Sam Miller and I discussed the significance of the strikeout surge on today's episode of Effectively Wild. To avoid having to hear us talk about other topics, skip straight to the strikeout stuff at the 9:30 mark.

Ben Lindbergh is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @ben_lindbergh
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