Houston Astros RHP Justin Verlander recorded his 3,000th career strikeout tonight, becoming the 18th pitcher in Major League history to reach that milestone. He did so with his sixth of the night, a swinging strikeout of Angels RF Kole Calhoun, who reached first on what was ruled a wild pitch. Oddly enough, this marked just the third of Verlander’s 3,006 strikeouts in which the batter reached first base.
Verlander finished his outing tossing 6.0 innings, allowing three runs on four hits with 12 strikeouts, giving him a career high 300 strikeouts on the season and 3,006 strikeouts for his career.
The 300 strikeouts this season are a career high and marked the first time for Verlander to reach 300 strikeouts in a single season. He’s just the second pitcher in MLB history to reach 300 strikeouts for a season and 3,000 strikeouts for a career within the same game, joining LHP Randy Johnson, who did so on Sept. 10, 2000 at FLA, while pitching for the Diamondbacks.
Of the 17 other pitchers to reach 3,000 strikeouts, 14 are in the Hall of Fame and one pitcher is active, LHP CC Sabathia. Verlander is now one of five pitchers with 3,000 strikeouts to pitch for the Houston franchise, joining RHP Nolan Ryan (5,714), Johnson (4,875), RHP Roger Clemens (4,672) and RHP Curt Schilling (3,116).
Verlander reached strikeout number 3,000 on inning number 2,979.2 and in his 453rd game. Per Elias, Verlander is the fourth quickest to 3,000 strikeouts by innings and the fifth quickest in terms of games.
All 300 of Verlander’s strikeouts and all of Verlander’s 223.0 innings pitched this season were caught by C Robinson Chirinos, who was also behind the dish for Verlander’s historic third no-hitter on Sept. 1 at TOR. Chirinos started all 34 of Verlander’s starts in 2019.