Washington’s Max Scherzer Strikes Out 20 Detroit Tigers, Ties Record

Washington Nationals righthander Max Scherzer tied the Major League record for strikeouts in a nine inning game on May 11th when he fanned 20 Detroit Tigers en route to a 3-2 victory in front of 35,695 at Nationals Park. Scherzer joins Randy Johnson, Kerry Wood, and Roger Clemens (who did it twice) as the only pitchers to strikeout 20 in a nine inning game; Johnson’s game went into extra innings but he only pitched nine.

It was also Scherzer’s first career victory over Detroit, one of his former teams. He now has defeated every Major League team at least once, joining the Cubs’ John Lackey as the only active pitchers to beat every team. Here’s all 20 of his strikeouts:

The record for the most strikeouts in a game of any length is not held by any Hall of Famer or all time great. On September 12th, 1962, Tom Cheney of the Washington Senators (now the Texas Rangers) struck out 21 Baltimore Orioles in a 16 inning game in which he pitched all 16 innings, a feat that is simply unheard of today. He threw a whopping 28 pitches in the 2-1 complete game victory. Cheney pitched from 1957 to 1966 with the Cardinals, Pirates, and Senators. He had a lifetime record of 19-29 with a 3.77 ERA and 345 strikeouts in 466 innings. A hard throwing righthander, Cheney suffered an elbow injury in July of 1963, which was the beginning of the end of his career.