When the 1911 season rolled into action, the remarkable Rube Waddell was no longer part of the big league firmament. Looking back, we can peer – with something beyond awe – at the southpaw’s knack for making batters trudge away from the plate having gone down on strikes. The numbers offer this particular nugget:
Through the 1910 season, among the 83 pitchers with at least 2,000.0 career innings, Waddell owned the highest strikeout percentage, at 19.8. That percentage would prove to be extraordinarily durable, holding as the best any 2K-inning hurler could muster at career’s end until Sandy Koufax called things off after the 1966 season with a 25.2%. When the calendar shifted to a new millennium, Waddell still retained the ninth highest percentage and by the time his final season was 100 years old, he still owned the 14th highest percentage.
MacKenzie Gore rang up another nine strikeouts (in five innings) on Sunday, lifting his Major League-leading total to 68. Aside from Gore, that number at this stage in the season (through 35 team games) has been reached/surpassed 85 times since 1901 (Rube Waddell, with 102 K’s in 1903, has the most). When Gore and the other 85 hurlers are organized by their strikeout percentage at this moment, Gore climbs up to the 16th highest slot, with a K% of 36.4. The top five percentages come from:
2020 Shane Bieber 42.4%
2018 Gerrit Cole 41.8%
2000 Pedro Martínez 40.6%
2013 Yu Darvish 40.4%
2018 Max Scherzer 40.0%
*Special mention needs to be made of Waddell’s 1906, when the lefty had fanned 80 batters through his club’s first 35 games and owned a K% of 38.5, the ninth highest for any of these 86 pitchers with at least 68 strikeouts (Waddell is between Randy Johnson’s 39.0 in 2001 and Curt Schilling’s 37.8 from 1998). Waddell’s percentage from 1906 is the only one from the deadball era among the top 57 percentages, and then his own 25.4% from 1903 appears.
Freddy Peralta worked six scoreless innings to raise his win total to four and lower his ERA to 2.18.
~The right-hander is in the top six in the NL in all three Triple Crown categories: tied for third in wins, fifth in ERA and sixth in strikeouts (with 48). There’s one other hurler who can make this claim: Dodgers righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is first with a 0.90 ERA, tied for third with four wins and fifth in strikeouts with 49.
~Peralta’s 2.18 ERA is the 13th lowest for any Brewers pitcher through 35 games (minimum 35.0 IP), with Ricky Bones having gone lower at this exact stage than any other, a 1.46 ERA in 1994.
Making his 225th career appearance, Jacob deGrom notched his 1,700th strikeout. The Rangers’ right-hander is the only player ever to reach that milestone number through 225 games, with Randy Johnson (1,675 K’s) having come the closest.
The Royals, who entered Sunday with 18 longballs in 34 games this season, launched a franchise record seven in an 11-6 win over the Orioles. Ther previous high – six – had been first reached in 1991 and then matched in 2003 and 2020.
The Padres took down the Pirates 4-0 to notch their eighth team shutout of the season. Considering these eight have come with San Diego playing only 33 games, this tally stands up for some acknowledgement:
1901-2025: Most Team Shutouts Through 33 Games
10 1968 Indians
9 1914 Red Sox
8 1907 Cubs, 1913 Phillies, 1945 Tigers, 1969 Cubs, 1972 Orioles, 2025 Padres
On the other side of notable history, Pittsburgh has been blanked six times this year. Since 1901, there have been only three other Pirates clubs to have suffered so many times through 35 contests. The 1955 team was shut out seven times, as was the 1985 club. Like the 2025 situation, the 1952 Pirates were blanked six times through 35 games.
Taylor Walls doubled and added three singles to his line in Tampa Bay’s 7-5 win over New York. It’s the fifth time this season a ninth-place hitter has contributed at least four hits to his club’s output. The most such games in any season since 1901 occurred in 2007, when there were 17. The fifth that year took place on June 19, when teams had played between 67 and 72 games.
Jonathan Aranda homered, singled twice and drew two walks to highlight (and help drive) the Rays’ win on Sunday. The 26-year-old is slashing .316/.414/.561 this year. The Tampa Bay franchise has seen only two qualified players ever post a .300/.400/.500 line: Fred McGriff in 1999 and Yandy Díaz in 2023.
Aaron Judge doubled for his 22nd extra-base hit of the year (he’s tied with Pete Alonso for the Major League lead). Those 22 through 34 team games had been reached (or exceeded) 12 previous times in Yankees history.
29 Lou Gehrig (1927)
25 Babe Ruth (1921, 1926, 1928), Mickey Mantle (1956), Alfonso Soriano (2002)
24 Álex Rodríguez (2007)
23 Babe Ruth (1923), Bill Dickey (1936)
22 Bob Meusel (1928), Babe Ruth (1930), Derek Jeter (1999), Aaron Judge (2025)
Carlos Santana drew a bases-loaded walk in Cleveland’s win over Toronto – the 20th time in his career he’s worked a free pass with the bases full. Santana is the active leader in walks and the active leader in this sub-category. In the divisional era, Dwight Evans, with 38, has the most bases-loaded walks, followed by Derek Jeter (31), Mickey Tettleton (30), Joe Morgan, Dave Winfield and Rickey Henderson (each with 29).
Kyle Schwarber homered and walked to extend his on-base streak to 34 games. The Phillies’ 32-year-old is tied with Logan Morrison (2011) for the sixth longest streak to open a season this century.
Geraldo Perdomo filled up his line on Sunday, with five times on base (four hits, including two doubles, and a walk), three RBI and two stolen bases. Specifics of Perdomo’s line have been reached by a leadoff hitter only 11 times since 1901 – an assemblage that offers a distinctly 21st century flavor.
1901-2025: Leadoff Hitters w/ 5+ TOB, 2+ XBH, 2+ SB, 3+ RBI
1980s Gary Redus (1983)
1990s Rickey Henderson (1991)
2000s Chris Duffy (2006), Julio Lugo (2007), Chone Figgins (2007), Jimmy Rollins (2008), Clint Barmes (2008)
2010s Danny Santana (2014)
2020s Ronald Acuña, Jr. (2023), Shohei Ohtani (2024), Geraldo Perdomo (2025)
Batting leadoff, Kerry Carpenter singled and doubled in three trips against Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz and ultimately finished his day with a robust four hits and five RBI.
~Carpenter, who bats left, is OPS’ing .905 against right-handed starters this season – a good, but not otherworldly, mark. For all batters in 2025 with at least 75 plate appearances in this split, Carpenter’s .905 comes in as the 24th best. A pair of Mariners switch-hitters – Jorge Polanco and Cal Raleigh – come in at 1-2, with a 1.207 and 1.187, respectively. Hitting from the right side, Aaron Judge owns the third highest mark, at 1.160.
~Carpenter posted the fourth-ever leadoff hitter line for a Tiger that featured at least four hits and five RBI. Gee Walker was the first to do this, in 1936. Then, Roger Cedeño matched the feat in 2001 before Víctor Reyes made the duo a trio in 2020.
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.