August 29th, 2006 → 6:00 pm @ Seth Mnookin // No Comments
If there’s anything the last couple of weeks have taught us, it’s that it’s never safe to assume anything (tomorrow night, I wouldn’t be surprised if Theo and Larry Lucchino end up in the outfield). That said, it seems pretty likely that Schilling, with 2999 career strikeouts, will hit 3,000 tomorrow night, putting him 14th on the all-time list and making him one of four active pitchers to reach that plateau (Clemens, 4566; Randy Johnson, 4509; Maddux, 3148. Pedro, for those keeping score, will likely reach it after another couple of starts: he’s sitting at 2986).
The Sox sent out a fact sheet about Schilling’s career K’s; it’s five pages long, so I won’t reprint it here. But the following are some of the highlights:
* He has 457 K’s as a member of the Sox.
* His first strikeout victim was Todd Benzinger…a member of the Red Sox at the time. (My bet for no. 3000 is Milton Bradley.
* He’s struck out 245 Giants, but only 16 Twins.
* He’s topped 300 K’s three times, in ’97 (319), ’98 (300), and ’02 (316).
* He has 279 strike outs at Fenway.
* He’s faced Jeff Fassero 6 times; every time resulted in a whiff.
* He’s faced three players more than 10 times without a single strikeout: Orlando Merced (20 ABs), Warren Morris (15 ABs), and the always-pesky David Eckstein (11 ABs).
* He’s struck out five Hall of Famers (Ryan Sandberg, Eddie Murray, Wade Boggs, Kirby Puckett, and Ozzie Smith), four members of the 500 HR club (Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Murray), three major league managers (Joe Girardi, Willie Randolph, and Mike Scioscia), and two members of the Sox front office (Bob Tewksbury and Craig Shipley).
* No wonder he’s a Republican: he has 1,520 strikeouts during the George H.W. Bush’s and George W. Bush’s administrations but only 1,479 during Clinton’s.
Post Categories: Curt Schilling
