Presented by COMMERCIAL TIRE.
This Day In Sports…May 11, 2016, 10 years ago today:
Washington’s Max Scherzer ties the major league record for strikeouts in a game by fanning 20 batters in a 3-2 win over Detroit. Scherzer had a chance at 21 as James McCann came up with two outs in the ninth. McCann had already struck out three times, but he grounded out on his first pitch. Scherzer became just the fourth pitcher in history—and the first in 15 years—to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning outing, joining Roger Clemens (twice), Kerry Wood and Randy Johnson.
Scherzer’s strikeouts came in waves against a formidable Tigers lineup. He fanned five batters over the first two innings. Scherzer allowed a solo home run from Jose Iglesias in the third, but he finished the inning with three straight strikeouts, taking his game count to eight Ks. At the end of five innings Scherzer was up to 11, but the score was tied 1-1, so Nats fans were more focused on that then on an MLB record. When Washington took a 3-1 lead in the seventh with Scherzer sitting on 15 strikeouts, the crowd started to take the record quest seriously.
Scherzer took 18 punch-outs into the ninth inning, but emotions were mixed again when JD Martinez went deep with a solo homer to make it 3-2. Scherzer followed by striking out superstar Miguel Cabrera to get to 19, but Victor Martinez got on with his third hit of the night. Justin Upton then went down on three pitches to give Scherzer a tie for the record, but the winning run was still coming to the plate in the form of McCann. His groundout gave the Nationals the victory but left Scherzer agonizingly short of MLB history.
Clemens became the first pitcher in MLB history to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning game when he handcuffed the Seattle Mariners with Boston 40 years ago at Fenway Park. He repeated the feat in 1996 by fanning 20 Tigers in Detroit. Kerry Wood of the Cubs produced one of the most dominant pitching performances in MLB history in 1998, striking out 20 Houston Astros in a 2-0 one-hitter at Wrigley Field. And in 2001, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson struck out 20 hitters in nine innings against Cincinnati, but he left the game after that with the score tied 1-1 (the D-Backs won 4-3 in 11 innings).
Scherzer would go on to be a 20-game winner in 2016 (with a 20-7 record), a feat that has become eminently rare. There have been only seven pitchers in all of baseball to spin 20 wins since. Now in his 19th big league season and his second with the Toronto Blue Jays, the end is near for Scherzer. He is 1-3 with a 9.64 ERA in five starts and has been on the injured list the past two weeks with right forearm tendinitis. Scherzer hasn’t posted double-digit wins in a season since 2023.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
