FanPost

Teams that struck out at least 14 with no walks

In Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Saturday, the Dodgers used 8 pitchers, none of whom threw more than 1.2 innings.

They combined to strike out 14 Braves and walk 0.

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Only 3 times before in post-season history had a team racked up at least that many strikeouts and no walks.

All 4 games have come in National League series -- 3 of them, in the last 4 seasons!

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BRAVES' NEW WORLD

In 3 of the 4 games, the team had exactly 14 strikeouts and no walks, including the first: the Braves, in a 7-3 win over the Giants, in Game 2 of the Division Series on Oct. 3, 2002.

Starter Kevin Millwood struck out 7 in 6 innings, while allowing 2 runs on 3 hits.

Mike Remlinger fanned 2 and gave up 2 hits in the seventh.

Darren Holmes struck out the first batter he faced in the eighth, then allowed a single and got a foul popup.

John Smoltz came in to get the final out, striking out Jeff Kent.

In the ninth, Smoltz surrendered a home run to Barry Bonds, then struck out 3 straight batters on 3 pitches to end the game.

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No team recorded even 12 strikeouts with no walks in the post season again until Oct. 10, 2010, when the Rangers did so while losing to the Rays, 5-2, in Game 4 of the AL Division Series.

The Royals had 12-and-0 in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series, won by the Giants, 3-2.

In Game 1 of the 2017 Series, the Dodgers fanned 12 Astros without walking any.

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DODGERS, THEN NATIONALS

On Oct. 20, 2018, in Game 7 of the NLCS, the Dodgers matched Braves' 2002 feat of 14 strikeouts and no walks, as they beat the Brewers, 5-1.

Walker Buehler provided half the strikeouts in the first 4.2 innings. Julio Urias then retired the only batter he faced to end the fifth inning.

Ryan Madson fanned 2 in 1.2 innings; Kenley Jansen, 3 in 1.1; and Clayton Kershaw, 2 in 1.0.

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Less than 2 years later, on Oct. 14, 2019, in Game 3 of the NLCS, the Nationals set a post-season record of 16 strikeouts without a walk.

Stephen Strasburg notched the first 12 strikeouts, in 7 innings. Fernando Rodney and Tanner Rainey each had 2 in his only inning.

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43 WITH AT LEAST 10 STRIKEOUTS

Besides the 1 game with 16 strikeouts and no walks, and the 3 with 14-and-0, there have been 3 no-walk games in the post season with 13 strikeouts, 3 with 12, 15 with 11 and 18 with 10, for a total of 43 games in which a team had double-digit strikeouts and zero walks.

One of the 13-strikeout games came this year -- 2 days before the Dodgers' 14-strikeout performance on Saturday, as the Dodgers went 13-and-0 while eliminating the Giants in Game 5 of the NLDS on Thursday!

The Giants had struck out 12 and walked none in the series opener on Oct. 8. The Red Sox had fanned 12 Yankees without issuing in a walk in the AL Wild Card game on Oct. 5.

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There were a pair of 12-and-0 games last fall, by the Braves in an NLDS win over the Marlins and by the Athletics in an ALWC loss to the White Sox.

Then, in the ALCS, the Astros fanned 13 Rays in 8 innings of a 4-2 loss.

That was the fewest innings pitched by any of the teams with at least 12 strikeouts and no walks.

The Dodgers pitched 8.1 innings in their loss on Saturday.

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METS WERE FIRST TO 13

So did the Mets, who struck out 13 in a 2-1 loss to the Reds in Game 1 of their NLCS on Oct. 6, 1973.

Until that day, the record for most strikeouts with no walks had been 11, by the Dodgers, in a 1-0 loss to the Yankees in Game 1 of the World Series on Oct. 5, 1949.

Only once before then had a team had double-digit strikeouts and no walks: on Oct. 1, 1903, in the first World Series game ever played.!

Right hander Deacon Phillippe went the distance, permitting 3 runs on 6 hits, to lead the Pirates past the host Americans, today's Red Sox, by a score of 7-3.

The losing pitcher? Cy Young, who yielded 12 hits, including a home run. He walked 3 and struck out 5.

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MANY MORE THIS CENTURY

After the Mets' 13-strikeout game in 1973, there was only 1 post-season contest with even 10 strikeouts and no walks for nearly a quarter of a century.

The Dodgers had 10 on the nose in the 1978 NLCS against the Phillies.

Then it didn't happen again until the Braves had 10 against the Dodgers in the 1996 NLDS.

The Orioles had 10-and-0 against the Mariners in 1997, and the Reds Sox matched them the next year, against Cleveland.

That made a total of 7 such games since 1903, and there were none in 1999.

There were 9 in 2000-09 and 19 in 2010-19. There have been 8 in the past 2 years.

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REGULAR-SEASON DATA

In the regular season, teams have had 10 or more strikeouts and no walks in 2,254 games, an average of 18 per season. But nearly two thirds of those games, 1,426, or 65 per season, have come since 2000, with 124 of them in 2021.

Only 1 of those 124 was by the Cubs. They registered 13 strikeouts without a walk in their 6-5 win over the Pirates on Sept. 3.

The Cubs failed to walk and struck out at least 10 times in 5 games, with a high of 16 strikeouts in a 10-0 thumping by the Brewers on Aug. 11.

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Of all 1,426 games with double-digit strikeouts and no walks, 255 had at least 14 strikeouts, the same as the Dodgers had Saturday against the Braves.

Twenty-eight of the 255 were extra-inning games, including a 22-inning battle in 1989, in which the Expos fanned 17 before losing to the Dodgers, 1-0.

The Rays struck out 24, the most ever without a walk, in a 1-0, 13-inning win over the Tigers on Aug. 17, 2019.

The Red Sox had set the record barley 3 months earlier, with 22 in a 2-1, 12-inning win over the Orioles.

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The 9-inning record is 20 -- in the only 4 games in Major League history in which an individual pitcher struck out 20 batters: Roger Clemens of the Red Sox, against the Mariners in 1986 and against the Tigers in 1996; Kerry Wood of the Cubs, in his game for the ages against the Astros in 1998; and Max Scherzer of the Nationals, against the Tigers in 2016.

There have been 5 games with 19 strikeouts and no walks. The most recent was by Cleveland, against the Cardinals, in 2015. Corey Kluber struck out 18 in 8 innings and Cody Allen got No. 19.

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FERGIE'S 14S

Before Wood's masterpiece, the most strikeouts by Cubs pitchers without issuing a walk was 14, accomplished twice, about 13 months apart.

On June 27, 1970, Ferguson Jenkins did it in an 8-inning complete game, as he lost at Pittsburgh, 2-1.

On July 24, 1971, Jenkins had 14 again in a 2-1 win at Philadelphia.

Since Wood's 20 strikeouts, the Cubs have had 3 games with at least 14 and no walks:

--16, in a 6-5 loss at home to the Padres on July 30, 2002. Mark Prior had 10 of the strikeouts, in 6 innings; Jeff Fassero, 1 in 0.2; Tom Gordon, 3 in 1.1; and Juan Cruz, 2 in 1.0

--15, in a 7-2 win over the visiting Brewers on Aug. 4, 2019. The strikeouts were by Yu Darvish (8 in 5.0), Derek Holland (2 in 1.0) and Tyler Chatwood (5 in 3.0)

--14, in an 8-0 rout at Baltimore on July 16, 2017. Jose Quintana, in his debut as a Cub, fanned 12 in 7 innings. Carl Edwards Jr. and Brian Duensing each had 1 strikeout in 1 inning.

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CUBS IN POST SEASON

The Cubs' post-season high for strikeouts without a walk is 11.

They did it twice, just 3 days apart.

On Oct. 7, 2015, Jake Arrieta fanned 11, walked none and blanked the Pirates on 5 hits, 4-0, in the NL Wild Card game at Pittsburgh.

On Oct. 10, the Cubs evened the Division Series at 1 game apiece with a 6-3 win at St. Louis. Kyle Hendricks struck out 7 in 4.2 innings; Travis Wood, 2 in 2.1; and Trevor Cahill, 2 in 1.0. Hector Rondon worked the ninth. He preserved the victory but did not strike out any batters.

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In Game 5 of the 2016 World Series, the Cubs struck out 9 and walked none in a 3-2 win over Cleveland.

They finished with 6 strikeouts and no walks in each of the first 2 games of that year's Division Series against the Giants, games they won by 1-0 and 5-2.

The Cubs have had only 2 other post-season games in which they did not walk a batter, for a total of 7.

They had 4 strikeouts while beating the Tigers, 3-0, in Game 4 of the 1908 World Series.

And they had just 3 while losing to the Padres, 7-1, in Game 3 of the 1984 Division Series.


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