There are 94 pitchers in major league history with 2,000 strikeouts. Jacob deGrom got there faster than 93 of them.
The Texas Rangers right-hander needed eight pitches Thursday night to reach the moment. He struck out Abimelec Ortiz on a slider Thursday night for No. 2,000, two batters into a game against the Washington Nationals. He reached 2,000 Ks in 1,661 career innings. Only Chris Sale, at 1,626 innings in 2019, needed fewer.
DeGrom passed Yu Darvish (1,697⅓ innings), Pedro Martinez, who got there in 1,711⅓ innings, and Randy Johnson, who needed 1,733⅓, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. If you measure it by games, it is nearly as lopsided. Thursday was deGrom’s 272nd big league appearance, all of them starts. Johnson needed 262 games to hit 2,000 strikeouts. Nobody else has done it in fewer than 277.
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Sale was 30 at the time he reached 2,000 strikeouts and Clayton Kershaw was 29. DeGrom just turned 38 in June.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner in 2018-19 had a late start. DeGrom was a shortstop the first two years of college and drafted after converting to pitching in 2010. He was a ninth-round pick who blew out his elbow six starts into his professional career. He had Tommy John in 2010 and missed all of 2011. He didn’t make it to the majors until a month before his 26th birthday.
He has also been saddled with injuries in MLB. He made 31 or more starts in each season from 2017 through 2019 and pitched to a 2.53 ERA across 622⅓ innings. He made 32 starts in 2018 alone. Then came the injuries, and the Tommy John surgery in June 2023, 13 years after the first one. He made just 35 starts total from 2021-24.
When he was healthy, his strikeout rate was among the tops in the game. His strikeout percentage is 30.5 for his career.
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This season has been deGrom’s messiest of any “healthy stretch.” He entered Thursday night’s game at 8-8 with a 3.95 ERA and a 98 ERA+. Both are career worsts. The fastball still averages better than 97 mph.
He’s had a left hip and glute issue nagging him since the All-Star break, and it is why manager Skip Schumaker pulled him after five innings and 88 pitches against Baltimore on Aug. 8, a night deGrom still struck out nine and gave up one run. Five days later he left his start in Anaheim after just two innings with what the Rangers labeled triceps fatigue. He had an MRI that came back clean and he threw two bullpens to gear up for this night.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jacob deGrom hits 2,000 strikeouts. Only one man got there faster.
