Roger Clemens, Kerry Wood and Max Scherzer can step aside.
Bethlehem Yankees pitcher Zach Silfies recorded 21 strikeouts Sunday as the Yankees defeated the Lightning 3-0 at Silver Creek Athletic Association in Hellertown in Lehigh Valley Baseball League South Division action.
The Elizabethtown College hurler fanned the first seven hitters he faced as well as the final 14. In between were back-to-back Lightning hits in the third inning. Every other frame was 3-up, 3-down, and Silfies recorded 10 of the strikeouts looking.
Silfies said he never realized he recorded every out by strikeout until after the game.
“I just focused liked I do every game. I play the game I love and know I got a job to do. I’ve had good games but I have never had 21 strikeouts before, but I don’t play for stats I play to give my team the best chance to win the game that I can. I was just focused on the job I had to do and that was get the final out of the game to make sure we won. I didn’t realize I had 21 strikeouts till after the game,” Silfies said.
The 21 Ks in a single game eclipse the well-known Major League Baseball record shared by Clemens (twice), Wood, and most recently Scherzer.
“Every game we hand Silfies the ball we feel like we can win,” Yankees co-manager Isaac Samuel said. “He throws a lot of strikes and throws hard. He’s confident in himself which helps him dominate hitters. Today especially after the second inning we all felt like he could do something special after striking out the side each inning. Having him and [Grimaldi] Grim {Gonzalez] as our 1-2 punch really helps our team’s confidence. We’re confident in having two of the best pitchers in the league take the mound for us each week and we expect to win every time.”
The outing turned Silfies’s season stat line from eye-raising to outright eye-popping.
--He now has 38 strikeouts in 15 innings pitched, spanning two wins and a save, and he has yet to allow a run.
--Silfies is averaging 2.53 strikeouts per inning pitched -- in other words, he has struck out the side more often than not.
--Only 14 LVBL pitchers recorded more than 38 strikeouts in all of 2019, all of them pitching at least twice as many innings as Silfies has so far.
--Silfies’s K/9 rate of 22.8 would have outpaced any qualified 2019 LVBL pitcher by almost five strikeouts per nine innings.
It’s a second consecutive week with a pitching gem for the Yankees, who last week were one out away from a perfect game from Gonzalez.
“We have the pitching and been playing great defense,” Yankees co-manager Edgar Lebron said. “We’ve also been hitting well. Isaac and I have a lot of confidence in our pitchers and team overall. We just have to take it game by game.”
