Wednesday night was a pretty good night for pitchers. One one coast, Max Scherzer threw a complete game for the Washington Nationals and beat his old team 3-2 on the strength of 20 strikeouts, joining Roger Clemens, Kerry Wood, and Randy Johnson as the only players to strike out 20 batters in nine innings. If you’re a pitcher, the company doesn’t get much better than that. On the left coast, Noah Syndergaard was wresting the crown for most prolific batsman on staff from his future co-star in a Twins reboot.
Scherzer fell just one strikeout shy of the Major League record of 21 in a game, set by Tom Cheney of the Washington Senators in a 16-inning game in 1962. His 20th strikeout came on the 26th out, so he had one batter left to have the nine-inning record all to himself, but Tigers catcher James McCann wouldn’t cooperate and grounded to third base for a force-out at second to end the game. If you’re into the whole brevity thing, here are Scherzer’s 20 strikeouts in 20 seconds.
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The only thing that could possibly be better than watching a pitcher mow down batter after batter would be a pitcher mashing taters. Oh!
As Scherzer was cooling off in Washington, Noah Syndergaard was heating up and helping his own cause in Los Angeles. Days after Bartolo Colon hit his first career home run, the Mets hoss mashed his second and third career taters. Syndergaard’s first home run—also his first hit of the season—came in the third inning and he gave himself a one-run lead. His second came two innings later when he found himself trailing the Dodgers 2-1. With two men on, Syndergaard dined on some opposite-field mashed taters for a 4-2 lead.
Syndergaard went eight innings, struck out six, and supplied all of the offense for his third win of the season. Even though he was a one-man wrecking crew, he didn’t accept the praise. He knows where his bread is buttered:
