Strikeouts question

Maybe he counts a swing and a miss as a strikeout?

 

We've had a former coach in the area clock the kid. His top speed on a fastball was 77. I dont know if that is considered average or what for a junior, but there is no way the kid had 422 Ks in a season. Our state record is 192 or so.

 

If he's throwing 77 mph, he's going to get the shit knocked out of him in most any high school league in the country. Unless he's got great movement and a great breaking pitch, 77 is VERY average for high school. Most any coach would have his team running laps if they didn't knock the snot out of that. You don't get into the "special" range until you get in the mid to upper 80s. No way he's got 422 strikeouts.
I've been doing high school baseball for 10 years, and the most I've seen with one of our local guys was 165. That was in a crappy private school league, and the kid pitched almost 100 innings for a team that made the state finals (playing 35 or 40 games). Same year, another guy had 160 in a good public school league (again, for a team that made the state finals) and he's in the majors now. I could believe in the 200s for somebody throwing 90-something in a bad league. But 400? With a 77 mph fastball? No freaking way.

 

You really should call the coach of the team this pitcher supposedly threw the 19 strikeouts against. Ask him the real story.
If it turns out the kid had like five, you need to talk to the lying coach and find out why his stats are so off.
I would stop putting his information in the paper until he gave me some sign he was being more honest about it.
There is no way a 77-mph fastball is striking out more than a handful. That's below average.

 

Apparently the 19 Ks did happen.

We finally got in touch with the opposing assistant coach/stat keeper and he said the starter threw 6 2/3 innings. He went out with one out in the 7th, his brother walked two and hit a batter to load the bases, and then the starter came back in and struck out the final two hitters.

Our coach said the starter went out with one out in the 6th and didn't come back in until there was one out in the 7th, leading me to believe the reliever threw a whole inning before coming out.

 

Then the kid is either throwing way faster than 77 or that team is the worst on the planet.
You all need to go and watch this pitcher. If he's putting up 19 strikeouts in a game, period, he's worth a story.

 

The coach talked to said something along the lines of his team just couldn't hit the ball worth a crap.

BTW, the team the pitcher threw against starts a bunch of middle schoolers.

 

Or maybe the pitcher is ...

 

Well played.

 

I could buy the 19 Ks in one game, especially if the other team is starting middle schoolers and sucks ass.
We had a guy a couple years ago who threw a five-inning perfect game with 15 Ks against a bad team. Another pitcher who's playing for an SEC team now was at a small private school in high school. He had 17 a few times, and over the course of his senior season had several four-strikeout innings because his catchers couldn't hang on to his curveball. The coach usually saved him for the better teams, but I have no doubt there were some teams they played that he could've gone 21-for-21 against (or better, depending on how well his catcher was playing).
But, still, 422 strikeouts in a season?
No. Way. In. Hell.
Dude would have to pitch almost every game his team played, and put up 19 Ks almost every time. I'll assume Kentucky is like here (Mississippi), where the teams that go deep in the playoffs will play about 35 games. That's 12 Ks a game, every game, and he'd have to hold up for 200-plus innings, throw three or four games a week, some doubleheaders and tournaments...you get the idea. Nolan Friggin' Ryan couldn't pull that off, let alone a high schooler with a meaty 77 mph fastball.

 

Call a writer from a paper that does cover this coach's team. See what they say about stats that appear to be way off.

 

Both teams (the one we print stats on and the one it played) are extremely small private schools (both have enrollments of less than 500 K-12) that do NOT play in the 250-member Kentucky High School Athletic Association.

And the paper which would cover the other school, the Lexington Herald Leader, prints just score by inning, battery and extra-base hits due to so many schools calling in (we only deal with 8, so we do roundups).