Inside Baseball: Strikeout-To-Walk Ratio

For no particular reason, here’s my favorite statistic thus far in the baseball season.

Cliff Lee has 67 strikeouts and has allowed four walks. That’s a ratio of 16.75, which is, you know, pretty good. In fact, it easily would be the best of all-time among those who have pitched enough innings to qualify. That’s if Lee can somehow sustain it.

Dennis Eckersley once had back-to-back seasons with ratios of 18.33 and 18.25, the second- and third-best marks of all-time. But he was a reliever who pitched a total of 131 innings in those seasons.

Thanks to The Play Index at baseball-reference, I know that some reliever at some point in time had a ratio of 21.00. But it won’t tell me who unless I subscribe. So if you happen to know who that was, please pass it along.