Jacob deGrom Is the Fastest Pitcher in MLB History to Reach This Impressive Milestone

The Rangers ace is adding to his ever growing résumé.
Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom reached 1,800 career strikeouts vs. the Mariners.
Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom reached 1,800 career strikeouts vs. the Mariners. / John Froschauer-Imagn Images
In this story:

Jacob deGrom's accomplished quite a lot in his MLB career, and he added another historic feat to his ever growing résumé on Sunday.

During Sunday's matchup with the Mariners, the Rangers ace logged his 1,800th career strikeout. deGrom became the fastest MLB pitcher in history to reach this milestone as he did so in 240 games and 1,493.1 innings.

The two-time NL Cy Young Award winner's historic strikeout was thrown against Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford in the second inning of Sunday's game. The three strikes thrown to Crawford were all 98 mph fastballs. It was deGrom's fourth strikeout of the game, too.

After deGrom's past two seasons were riddled with injuries, the ace is having a great comeback season this year. Ahead of Sunday's game, deGrom had a 2.55 ERA with a 10–3 record. He'd thrown 130 strikeouts this season—a solid 9.5 per nine innings pitched

The Rangers star now sits at No. 128 on the MLB's all-time list of strikeouts thrown by pitchers. Nolan Ryan holds a very strong lead for the record with 5,714 strikeouts thrown in his career.


More MLB on Sports Illustrated

feed


Published
Madison Williams
MADISON WILLIAMS

Madison Williams is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, where she specializes in tennis but covers a wide range of sports from a national perspective. Before joining SI in 2022, Williams worked at The Sporting News. Having graduated from Augustana College, she completed a master’s in sports media at Northwestern University. She is a dog mom and an avid reader.