K/9 Rate Madness

Though all the chatter coming out of last night’s game centered around Dempster and Lee (rightfully so), Carlos Marmol’s performance upped one of his rates to a level that is borderline incomprehensible.

Since 1901, there have only been 8 instances of a pitcher maintaining a k/9 rate of 14.00 or above through an entire season (minimum IP: 20).

Eric Gagne: 14.98
Billy Wagner: 14.95
Brad Lidge: 14.93
Armando Benitez: 14.77
Billy Wagner: 14.55
Billy Wagner: 14.38
Byung-Hyun Kimm: 14.14
Rob Dibble: 14.08

There have only been 13 additional times when a pitcher has maintained a k/9 rate of above 13.00 for an entire season (minimum IP: 20)*.

After his 2 K’s last night, Carlos Marmol is sitting at 23 2/3 IP and 46 K’s. A staggering 17.49 k/9 rate. To put that in perspective, there have only been 29 games, since 1901, in which an individual pitcher has thrown more than 17 K’s. In 8 of those 29 games the pitcher went more than 9 innings.

This stretch of strikeouts is so dominate, I am curious if there has ever been a streak of 23 2/3 innings with more strikeouts. I have played around on Baseball-Reference, Baseballmusings, and Baseball Prospectus, but they either don’t have the ability to search that way, or I am totally missing it. Anybody know?

* Nick Massett is sitting at 13.72 k/9 so far this year. I did not include him the the count.

[all stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference]