That Balls Outta Here
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Phillies top five unbreakable single season records

By Kerry Kauffman

ATLANTA - OCTOBER 11: Pitcher Curt Schilling #38 of the Philadelphia Phillies steps into a pitch during the National League Championship Series Game 5 on October 11, 1993 against the Atlanta Braves at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jim Gund/Getty Images)
ATLANTA - OCTOBER 11: Pitcher Curt Schilling #38 of the Philadelphia Phillies steps into a pitch during the National League Championship Series Game 5 on October 11, 1993 against the Atlanta Braves at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jim Gund/Getty Images) /
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PHILADELPHIA, PA – MAY 12: Curt Schilling of the Philadelphia Phillies pitches against the St. Louis Cardinals on May 12, 1999 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Sporting News via Getty Images via Getty Images) /

Curt Schilling: 319 strikeouts

Schilling was a key component to the 1993 NL Championship team winning a team-high 16 games and dominated in the postseason, winning MVP of the NLCS. Although pitching a little less than half his career with the Phillies, Schilling racked up two of his three highest single-season strikeout totals. His 319 strikeouts in 254 innings in 1997 is a career high and franchise record for a single season, nine more than Steve Carlton‘s 310 in 1972.

Since Schilling’s feat, only Randy Johnson (1999 – 2002) has surpassed 319 strikeouts in a season.  In terms of the franchise single-season strikeout marks, Schilling, Carlton, Jim Bunning, and Pete Alexander round out the top ten. Only three times has a Phillies starter reached 300 strikeouts in a season.

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With the era of power pitching and batters striking out at an alarming rate, one may think Schilling’s mark would drop. The question isn’t the ability of today’s pitchers to rack up the punch outs. The problem is that pitchers don’t throw the number of innings needed to reach those strikeout totals.

Aaron Nola is the Phillies best strikeout pitcher at the moment and likely to throw the most innings. He’s averaging around ten strikeouts per nine innings. He’d have to log 287 innings to reach Schilling’s mark. Given that starters generally throw every fifth game, that’s 32 or 33 starts for the season, meaning Nola would have to AVERAGE more than eight innings per game and fan 10 per nine innings.

That’s nearly impossible. At around seven innings per game for a top pitcher in today’s game, he would have to average approximately 13 strikeouts per nine innings, as a starter.

Next. Can Aaron Nola lead Phillies to 2nd half success?. dark

It’s looking nearly impossible that anyone will catch Schilling’s mark of 319 strikeouts in a season.

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