Sunday, August 01, 2010

K's Continue to Pile Up for Reynolds and D-Backs

Mark Reynolds is the king of the strikeout. He has struck out 20 times in his last 11 games. On Saturday night, he struck out his first four plate appearances against the Mets. He has already shattered the single season strikeout record with his 223 last year and it's hard to believe, but he's on an even more torrid pace this year.

In 2008, Reynolds struck out 1.38 times a game. That figure jumped to 1.44 last year. This year, his game rate is 1.48 K's per game. To look at it another way, in 2007, Reynolds struck out 37.8% of the time he got an at bat. Last year, that figure jumped to 38.5%. This year, he is outdoing himself and is striking out an astounding 42.5% of the time. At his current pace, he will end up with a mind-boggling 242 strikeouts.

To look at these strikeouts yet another way, Reynolds has made 1372 outs in his career. Of those outs, 703 of them have been strikeouts or 51.2%. This year, Reynolds has made outs 271 times and 147 of them have been strikeouts. That's 52.2% of his outs this year from strikeouts.

And he's not alone on his team. For some reason, Justin Upton has caught the fever. Last year, Upton struck out 26% of his at bats. This year, he's at 32%. Last year, 37.2% of Upton's outs were strikeouts. This year, he's at 43.6% of his outs being strikeouts. He is on pace to reach 180 to 190 strikeouts this season after striking out 137 times last year.

Chris Snyder, Adam LaRoche and Kelly Johnson are also prodigious strikeout guys. And Chris Young is going to be well over 100. Is it any wonder that the Diamondbacks have a 130 strikeout lead as a team over the second most strikeout-prone team? Amazing.

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