Who were Chris Sale’s top strikeout victims this season?
Chris Sale became just the 16th pitcher to record 300 strikeouts in a single season. He finished the year with 308 strikeouts, five short of the franchise record set by Pedro Martinez in 1999.
As Sale gets set to make his postseason debut Thursday, we took a closer look at his strikeouts.
■ Five players struck out at least seven times against Sale. Not surprisingly, all five play in the American League East as the Red Sox face their divisional rivals 19 times each: Topping the list are Tampa Bay’s Steven Souza, and New York Yankees candidate for Rookie of the Year and MVP Aaron Judge, who both struck out 10 times each.
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■ More than one third of Sales’ strikeouts came at Fenway Park. The next four ballparks were in the American League East, as he averaged nine strikeouts a game at both Fenway and Yankee Stadium, and just a bit more than 11 at Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore.
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■ In his 17 wins, Sale recorded 171 strikeouts. He had 68 strikeouts in his eight losses, and 69 strikeouts in seven no-decisions.
Sale averaged 11.2 strikeouts per start for the month of July, but dipped slightly to 8.8 strikeouts in his final 11 starts of the season.
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■ Only 10.7 percent of Sale’s strikeouts came on a full count, whereas 36.3 percent came on a 2-2 count.
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