On Thursday, Texas Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer very quietly took his place among baseball royalty.
With a 93-mph fastball in the top of the second inning that Chicago White Sox designated hitter Eloy Jiménez could only watch, Scherzer struck out the 3,394th batter of his career.
The punchout moved him into the top 10 in MLB history—one ahead of Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander, his teammate on the Detroit Tigers from 2010 to '14.
The nine pitchers ahead of Scherzer are Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Steve Carlton, Bert Blyleven, Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, Gaylord Perry and Walter Johnson. All but Clemens are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Scherzer accomplished the feat in his 17th season, an extraordinarily fast clip. For comparison, the 12th-place pitcher on the list—Hall of Famer Greg Maddux—struck out 3,371 batters in 23 seasons and just over 5,000 innings pitched.
Over the course of a career that will surely land him in Cooperstown, Scherzer has won three Cy Young awards and two World Series titles with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Tigers, Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets and Rangers.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rangers' Max Scherzer Cracks Top 10 on All-Time Strikeout List.
