When baseball games go long, weird stats tend to happen. Khalil Lee of the Lexington Legends, the Class A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, found that out the hard way.
Lee took a 1-for-9 in the game, which dropped his batting average by five points. But that’s not the story. No, the story is that every one of those outs came by way of the strikeout. Getting a Golden Sombrero in a game is bad enough. He did it twice.
Yikes.
As a frame of reference, the most strikeouts ever recorded in a Major League game is six. The most recent of those came in 2004, by Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Geoff Jenkins in a 17-inning game.
There is some silver lining for Lee, though.
One, he did reach base twice, adding a walk to the one hit he got.
Two, his team won. The Legends defeated the Delmavra Shorebirds (Baltimore Orioles) 7-6.
Three, the 21-inning game was just short of setting a South Atlantic League record.
The game ends after 21 innings in 6 hours 7 minutes. By innings, the longest in Shorebird history. One shy of SAL record 22.
— Delmarva Shorebirds (@shorebirds) July 14, 2017
In total, two two teams combined to use 13 pitchers, who collectively threw 624 pitches. If you went to this game, you go your money’s worth.