Kerry Wood’s 20 strikeout game still better than Max Scherzer’s

As excellent and jaw dropping as Max Scherzer’s 20 strikeout game was, it still doesn’t measure up to Kerry Wood’s. 

Washington Nationals starting pitcher Max Scherzer became just the fourth pitcher to obtain 20 strikeouts in nine innings. The only other pitchers to do that are Roger Clemens (who did it twice), Randy Johnson and Kerry Wood. Scherzer’s performance should be applauded, and it’s telling that his 20 strikeout performance was arguably more impressive than his two no-hitters from last season. However, does it measure up to Wood’s famous performance?

Scherzer’s outing was more efficient than Wood’s if one looks only at pitch count. Wood, despite walking nobody and allowing one hit, threw 122 pitches. 84 of those pitches (68.85 percent) were strikes. However, Scherzer simply blew away the Tigers in a way that Wood didn’t. Scherzer threw 96 of his 119 pitches for strikes. He nearly had more strikeouts (20) than pitches that weren’t strikes (23). Scherzer also caused more swings and misses, by a 31-24 margin. Both walked nobody, though Wood did hit one batter.

However, Wood’s outing is still more dominant and impressive than Scherzer’s. Wood’s 20 strikeout performance could be the most dominant pitching performance of all-time. He only allowed one hit and that was an infield hit. Against the Astros (20-11 record when they faced Wood compared to the Tigers’ 15-17 record), Wood only allowed three fly ball outs and five weakly hit ground ball outs. A grand total of two balls hit by the Astros exited the infield against Wood and both of those were outs.

While Scherzer’s outing should be applauded, he allowed two runs and six hits to the Tigers. He only allowed three ground balls compared to 13 fly balls and line drives combined. Impressive? Absolutely, but that doesn’t match up to Wood’s epic performance. Both Wood and Scherzer should be extremely proud of their respective performances. This writer had the honor of watching them both. But Wood’s performance could be argued to be the most impressive single game pitching performance of all-time. The same can’t be argued for Scherzer.

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