The Cubs Chronicle

As the Houston Astros neared completion of their dramatic comeback to win the Wild Card, overtaking the Cubs (and Giants, for now), with a 9-3 win over Colorado Saturday night, Jeff Kent hit two home runs to break Ryne Sandberg’s all-time record for most homers by a second baseman. Kent: 278; Sandberg: 277. I must say, that’s too bad. (Tip via Baseball Musings.)

Rooftop Report links to this Aaron Gleeman post discussing the Cubs pitching staff and their proclivity for striking out the opposition. The 2003 Cubs set the all-time record for strikeouts with 1404, breaking the record the 2001 Cubs set with 1344. Gleeman notes the 2004 Cubs have a good shot at being around 1400 again, and concludes: “And who knows, maybe someone will actually notice the Cubs trying to break a major league record this time.” Clearly, he wasn’t reading The Clark & Addison Chronicle last season (see here, here, here, and here). Though I did fail to note it when the record was actually broken.

Dusty Baker has named Juan Cruz the starting pitcher in today’s game over Shawn Estes. Here’s how the two compare as starters this year:

Player    IP      H      BB      K       ERA      SNPct
Cruz      24      21      7      23      3.00      .636
Estes    142.2   177     79      98      6.06      .313

Tough choice.

Baseball Prospectus’s Dayn Perry named Estes (subscription req’d) to his All-Disappointment Team on Thursday. As much as we could have expected Estes to be bad this year, there was little reason to believe he would be this bad. It has been clear that he has been this bad for awhile now, though. It’s nice to see Baker finally take the ball away from him.

On another note, updating the strikeout record quest, with 15 games remaining, Cubs pitchers need 75 more K’s to break the all-time record of 1344, set by the 2001 Cubs.

ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark notes in his latest “Useless Information” column that the Cubs’ pitching staff is on pace to record 1,393 strikeouts this season, which would be an all-time record. Stark gets one thing wrong, though: The 2001 Cubs currently hold the record of 1,344, not the 2002 Cubs (who had 1,333). I last noted the Cubs’ pace on July 10, when they were on pace for 1,406. And back on May 16, they were on the absurd pace to strikeout 1,496.

Stark also notes that the Cubs’ pitching staff currently has 72 more strikeouts than hits allowed. No National League team has ever had more strikeouts than hits allowed, and the 1968 Cleveland Indians are the only team to ever do it (they were 70 above).

(Thanks to reader Michael H. for the tip.)

Baseball Prospectus’s Derek Zumsteg noted on Wednesday (subscription req’d) that Sammy Sosa is the first serious threat to break Reggie Jackson’s career strikeout record since Jackson’s retirement. Jackson had 2,597 career strikeouts. After tonight’s game, Sosa has 1,942. 150 per year over the next four seasons would put him real close.

A few notes from tonight’s 3-1 loss to the Astros while trying to get over the sight of Fox Sports Net’s Gail Fischer playing the part on 70’s night:

As has been noted by the Chicago media, Kerry Wood had a chance to set some strikeout records tonight, and he did. His 9 strikeouts gave him 1000 for his career. He broke Roger Clemens’s record for fewest games to reach that total: Wood did it in 134 games; Clemens in 143; Dwight Gooden in 145; Hideo Nomo in 147. Wood also broke Nomo’s record for fewest innings to reach 1000 strikeouts: Wood did it in 853 innings; Nomo 927.2; Sam McDowell 932.2; Pedro Martinez 933.2.

Led by Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, the Cubs pitching staff is still on pace to break the all-time record for strikeouts in a season. The 2001 Cubs set the record with 1344. While this year’s staff has fallen off the pace they were setting in mid-May, they’re still on pace to record 1406 strikeouts after today’s game, easily beating their own record.

Only Shawn Estes, Antonio Alfonseca, and Mark Guthrie have strikeout rates below 7 per 9 innings among those having pitched at least 10 innings for the Cubs (which excludes Dave Veres and Phil Norton).

After setting the single-game strikeout record against the Brewer’s Thursday afternoon with 24, the Cubs pitching staff now has 374 strikeouts in 40 games. The 2001 Cubs pitching staff set the major league record with 1344. This year’s team is now on pace to strike out 1496 batters.

Take a whiff: Strikeouts are up, and Bobby Bonds’ record is in jeopardy (Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, 4/22/2003)

SI’s Tom Verducci lists several players that have the potential of breaking Bobby Bonds’s single season record for strikeouts, 189. One of the players he lists is Corey Patterson. Entering tonight’s game, Patterson is on pace to strikeout 179 times. I think it’s pretty unlikely he’ll approach the record, though. Last year, he played almost every day and rarely walked, but ended up 47 K’s short of the mark. But the way he looks at the plate sometimes, you never know.