Sale breaks K record with one start to go

San Francisco's Chris Sale shattered the league record for most strikeouts in a season, and still has one more start to extend his new mark.

The Experience lefty improved to 12-16 with a complete game 5-hitter in Wednesday night's 4-2 win at Empire City. He finished with 8 strikeouts and a walk, scattering 5 hits and 2 runs, continuing his scorching hot second half.

Sale struck out Adam Jones to end the 3rd inning for his 349th strikeout and then closed out the 4th inning with a strikeout of Evan Gattis to break the record of 349, set by Randy Johnson of Newark in 1996.

Sale has been among the hottest pitchers in the league the past month, rolling up a streak of 31 scoreless innings across five starts, coming within one out of three straight shutouts.

In his previous start on Saturday, Sale struck out 9 in 7 innings, piling up 120 pitches but got the win (11-16) at Allentown, leaving him with 347 strikeouts on the season, tying him with Pedro Martinez for second all-time.

Sale nearly threw his third shutout in a row in a 4-0 win over a formidable Hopatcong lineup last week. After a double play erased a leadoff single, Sale walked a batter and got the hook after 137 pitches. He went 8 2/3 innings, walked two and struck out 16. The only three hits yielded were by Zack Cozart, who doubled to leadoff the game, singled in the 6th and led off the 9th with a single

Coupled with the 18 strikeouts in his previous start, the 44 strikeouts could very well be a league record for two consecutive starts if we kept those kinds of records.

Sale is scheduled to make his final start at Arkansas in Sunday's Game 2, the season's penultimate finale.

Sardine City's Corey Kluber also has joined the exclusive 300-strikeout club. He now has 323 strikeouts with one start remaining. He reached 300 during a 13-strikeout complete game against Hillsborough.