Maddux in 2001 went nine straight starts, totaling 65 1/3 innings, without walking anyone. Burnes' streak was five straight starts and 29 1/3 innings.

These are literally the kind of numbers you'd see in a video game, where you figured out the one pitch that nobody can hit, even if they know it is coming, as long as you hit the buttons the right way.

This is a guy who had an 8.46 ERA in AAA in 2019, and an 8.82 ERA in Milwaukee that same year.

I have not seen him pitch - did he develop a Mariano-cut fastball-quality out pitch before the 2020 season or something? WTF is going on?

Nolan Ryan is obviously the all-time strikeout guy - both literally and figuratively. When you think of a pitcher who just rears back and overpowers batters, it is Nolan Ryan.

Ryan's best Ks/9 was 1987, when he struck out 11.5 per 9 innings. His career average is 9.5/9.

Corbin Burnes is averaging 15.2 per 9 right now. In the season where he went 1-5 with an ERA of 8.82, he struck out 12.5 per 9 - that's a K per 9 innings better than Nolan Ryan's best average for a season!

I don't mean to sound like Joe Sheehan or Bill James on Twitter about this stuff, but I guess I agree with them - we have seen this moment coming for a number of years, and the sport has done very little about it. This is not entertaining baseball, and is sort of the pitching equivalent of the sillyball home run year a generation ago.

Cole’s streak remains active

So he's about to get passed.

Ah yes, the old "strikeouts without a walk to start a season" record. I have fond memories of my grandpa telling me about when Dazzy Vance set a "strikeouts without a walk to start a season" record that seemed unbreakable.

I don’t know, it’s pretty impressive whether it’s a record or not. The Ks don’t impress me as much as the lack of BBs. Reminds me of Cliff Lee in 2010 or Brett Saberhagen in 1994.

Carlos Silva's 0.4 BB/9 in 2005. 9 walks in 188.1 IP.

The Ks don’t impress me as much as the lack of BBs

But as #1 and #6 note, that's not that impressive here. 0 BB in 29 innings is outstanding of course but we've seen much more impressive streaks before. What makes the factoid interesting is the combination of striking out the world while walking nobody. So it is the Ks that make this one fascinating -- 53 in 88 outs.

His last 94 innings have just been nuts. Even when batters make contact, they aren't doing anything. His HR/FB% the last couple of years is only about 3.7% (lg avg 10%). And yet, even this guy, a standard 293 BABIP in that time.

I don’t know, it’s pretty impressive whether it’s a record or not. The Ks don’t impress me as much as the lack of BBs. Reminds me of Cliff Lee in 2010 or Brett Saberhagen in 1994.

As post one pointed out though, it's not really that many innings. K/bb is great and all, but when talking about not doing a particular feat, such as not walking someone, the real barometer is the number of batters faced, not the number of batters you have struck out.

k/bb is a nice stat, it tells you some level of dominance etc... but as far as record goes... going 65 innings without a walk, is much more impressive than going almost 30 innings without a walk. The nature of the outs(strikeouts dominance vs normal pitching) isn't really an issue here. (and heck Maddux struck out 45 in that time frame.)

Note: It's still an impressive feat, but perspective is also important (as mentioned in the Yadier Molina 2000 games caught with one franchise, the impressive part isn't the one franchise, it's the 2000 games, unnecessarily creating selected limits to make someone look more elite than their impressive accomplishment is not being fair to the person you are trying to lionize)


Edit: I'm never a fan of rate stats that is based upon "start of the season"... is it possible someone had done it as equally or more impressively in the middle of the season? Did Pedro ever go that long without a walk? (sadly no from a quick look at his stat, he seemed to walk one person per game every game, even during his peak...sure generating 12 strikeouts per start--best stretch in 2001 was 65 k/7bb... or 67 with 7 in 2000...although I like his 84 with 10 more)

#2 is spot on. All we did this off season is deaden the ball to further suck the life out of offense while not solving one thing. Just get rid of the tool Manfred and be done with that weather vane of an empty suit.

MLB 2020: 245/322/418
MLB 2021: 235/311/391