It is hard to believe that Felix Hernandez has been around long enough to reach a new milestone. On Sunday, King Felix notched his 2,000th career strikeout in the Seattle Mariners game against the Oakland A’s. The Mariners won the game 4-3, bringing Hernandez’s season record to 6-0.
Hernandez is the fourth youngest pitcher to reach 2,000 for his career, and still has plenty of strikeouts left in him. Out of the three pitchers in front of him (Bert Blyleven, Sam McDowell, and Walter Johnson), two have made it into the Hall of Fame. Felix is currently 72nd on the All-Time Strikeout list, 11 strikeouts behind Catfish Hunter for 71st. He is sixth on the active pitchers list for strikeouts, and currently has the most strikeouts for any Venezuelan born player.
“It’s a pretty special moment. I’m so happy.” – Felix Hernandez
He is young, but is a very long way away from Nolan Ryan‘s 5,714, but if he stays healthy and keeps up his pace it isn’t out of the question that he may reach close to 4,000 strikeouts in his career.
Felix owns a 131-92 record with a career ERA of 3.05. The 2,001 strikeouts he has compiled has been done over 2,109.1 inning of work. One thing to keep in mind for the former Cy Young Award winner and five-time All-Star, he hasn’t played for the best of teams through his career so the numbers aren’t necessarily reflective of his dominance.
John Ginder
John has recently graduated from the University at Albany with a B.A. in History and is currently finishing his Master's Degree there as well in secondary education. After being away from school for over two decades he decided to go back and work towards his dream of becoming a social studies teacher.
