Jose Fernandez fans 14 Phillies on his way to 500th strikeout
On Monday night, Miami Marlins starting pitcher Jose Fernandez had a strikeout party, and the only people he invited were the Philadelphia Phillies. In the first 6 1/3 innings of the Marlins’ 3-2, 11-inning win, Fernandez struck out 14 Phillies batters. And in the middle of that waterfall of strikeouts, Fernandez notched his 500th, and made some history in the process.
The milestone came in the bottom of the fourth inning with Phillies left fielder Cody Asche batting. Asche had worked a 3-2 count, and was ready to take a walk when Fernandez delivered a 97 mph fastball that was on the bottom right corner of the strike zone. Asche thought it was ball four, so he had started to move toward the first base line, but home plate umpire Dan Bellino corrected him and loudly called it a strike. Asche turned back around and argued with Bellino, but it only made him look sillier. The pitch was on the corner, perhaps slightly borderline, but it was a strike.
It was Fernandez’s tenth strikeout of the night, and his 500th overall. But there’s more to this than Fernandez’s 500th strikeout. According to MLB.com’s Even Webeck, he’s now the fastest starting pitcher ever to reach that mark. Fernandez did it in 400 career innings, edging out Yu Darvish who reached the 500 strikeout milestone in 401 2/3 innings back in 2014.
[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Baseball contest now]
If you think that’s amazing, take a gander at another stat that Webeck dug up.
By total batters faced, the feat is even more impressive. Fernandez faced 72 fewer than Darvish — 1,587 compared to 1,659 — and 167 fewer than Dwight Gooden. How aboutClayton Kershaw? 2,023. Nolan Ryan? 2,250. Randy Johnson? 2,269.
By games started, however, Fernandez is only third. His 65 wasn’t fast enough to beat Gooden’s 61 or Darvish’s 62.
Keep in mind that Fernandez is just 23 years old and two years removed from Tommy John surgery, which shortened his 2014 and 2015 seasons. So not only is he still young, he came back from surgery better than ever. As if all of that wasn’t impressive enough, Fernandez didn’t just make MLB history. He also made a little Phillies history, too.
Jose Fernandez finishes with 14 strikeouts in 6⅓ innings. No pitcher has ever had 14+ K's against the Phillies in fewer than 7 innings
— Corey Seidman (@CoreySeidmanCSN) July 19, 2016
Considering how bad the Phillies have been over the past few years (and historically), that’s pretty spectacular. But that’s just how good he is. Jose Fernandez: making good teams look bad and bad teams look worse since 2013.
More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:
The StewPod: A baseball podcast by Yahoo Sports
Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS feed
– – – – – –
Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
