John Smoltz is impressed with Spencer Strider

Among all of the offensive records Atlanta's chasing this season, there's one on the pitching side that stands out: The single season strikeout record.

John Smoltz has it.

Spencer Strider's gunning for it.

Smoltz finished with 276 punch outs in 1996, his Cy Young-winning year where he led all of baseball in strikeouts, starts (35) and strikeout rate (9.8) while leading the National League in innings pitched (253.2) and winning percentage (.750).

Strider's sitting on 259 right now, but he's doing it a bit differently than Smoltz did.

Smoltz was more of a volume game - pitching 250-plus innings isn't in the cards anymore for modern pitchers, but even a modest (by today's standards) 9.8 K/9 times that many innings will get you to a record.

(And if you want to talk about volume and statistical accumulation, Phil Niekro sits between Smoltz and Glavine on this list, with 262 strikeouts in 1977, which he accumulated in three hundred and thirty innings. Turns out it's easy to get volume stats when you have an insane workload - the knuckleballer averaged 233 innings a season over his 24-year career.)

But no, Strider's a modern pitcher, and he's efficient. Strider's gotten his 259 strikeouts in only 169 innings, for a league-leading 13.8 strikeouts per nine innings.

Smoltz, who did color for the Braves broadcasts this week in Philly, was very complimentary of Strider's polish at such a young age:

"I speak from experience of: I was not very good my first three years. And I had to learn this stuff. It's not something you just walk into the league and you're born with. Spencer Strider is so far ahead of any one of us that's ever pitched in an Atlanta Braves uniform. That's what's so exciting about it. It's not a nitpicking situation, it's "oh my gosh this guy is so good' "

And Smoltz is right. Here's a career comparison of Strider and the "Big Three" of Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Greg Maddux through their first two seasons in the major leagues:

Record	ERA	Strikeouts & K/9	Innings
Spencer Strider	29-10 in 49 starts	3.27	461 @ 13.7 K/9	303.0
John Smoltz	14-18 in 41 starts	3.54	205 @ 6.8 K/9	272.0
Tom Glavine	9-21 in 43 starts	4.76	104 @ 3.8 K/9	245.2
Greg Maddux (with CHC)	8-18 in 32 starts	5.59	121 @ 5.8 K/9	186.2

Strider probably finishes the regular season with either two or three more starts (Jake has him at two, with Atlanta pushing him back from early next week to avoid Philadelphia). Using his average of six innings and 13.8 K/9, he's right on track to pass Smoltz.

And as Noah talked about earlier this week, that might not be the only strikeout milestone Strider breaks before the end of his career.

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