Strikeout Rate Quotes

Strikeouts are something that just happen. You don't go for strikeouts, because your pitch count gets too high. When you do get that opportunity, you have to put them away with whatever is working that day.

I was never a strikeout pitcher. Why should I throw eight or nine balls to get a man out when I got away with three or four?

Most of the managers are lifetime .220 hitters. For years pitchers have been getting these managers out 75% of the time and that's why they don't like us.

Home run hitters strike out a lot.

In baseball, even the best hitters fail seven of ten times, and of those seven failures there are different reasons why. Some are personal failures, others are losses to the pitcher. You just get beat. In those personal failures, I felt I could have done better.

I hate striking out, doesn't matter what time of the game. I just don't like striking out.

You feel like a stud out there when people swing and miss. As I've gotten older, I've preached to our young guys that strikeouts are sexy, but outs are outs, man, no matter how you get them. It's a lot cooler for me pitching in the seventh or eighth inning than it is going 5 1/3. Your manager likes it a lot more, too.

The game of baseball is a game of failure because it's so difficult to play. A 300 hitter, a superstar fails seven out of ten times at the plate. So what does that tell you about the game and its difficulty?

Like I'm seeing Chris Sale; he's got a similar pitching style and strikes guys out a lot. Why are people only talking about my strikeouts and all that stuff?... Why not the other guys, who have similar numbers and pitch counts?

If a pitcher goes up there and he's throwing a ball and it's a breaking ball down and away or a fastball up and in, a perfect pitcher's pitch, and you're able to just foul it off and stay alive in the at-bat, just keep grinding, keep working through the at-bat and hoping for that mistake that he's going to make. And if he doesn't, then you walk.

I think my job is to keep the ball down. I always say I try to go out there and get early contact, and strikeouts just seem to happen.

Baseball fans love numbers. They love to swirl them around their mouths like Bordeaux wine.

Hitting is business. With two strikes you really protect that plate.

I was the most powerful left-handed hitter in the Alameda area.

Strikeouts are important. Anytime you can generate an out without the ball being put in play, there's nothing that can be done in those situations.

I'm looking to generate strikeouts in every way I can.

I don't try for strikeouts, but batters just swing and miss. I'd exchange strikeouts for more innings. As a starter, my job is to go deep into the game. When you get strikeouts, you throw a lot of pitches and sometimes you come out early.

But I'm not looking forward to trying to strike out a lot of guys.

I want to strike out less than 20 times.

Everybody has bad at-bats -- except McCutchen.

During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at-bats a season. That means I played 7 years without ever hitting the ball.

Yeah, strikeouts just kind of happen. It's not something I'm trying to do, I'm just trying to get outs as fast as possible.