Article:Mark Reynolds Strikeout Record Watch...

The Arizona thirdbaseman made his 33rd error yesterday and struck out two more times, raising his season total to 198. The record for a season is 199, set last year by Ryan Howard. The current list :

#. Name           (Age) Total Year

1.

Ryan Howard and Jack Cust are not far off the mark either... This list, as you can see, consists of     1) Bobby Bonds 2) Rob Deer 3) Mike Schmidt 4) Pete Incavilia 5) Guys who've played in the 1990's and 2000's.     So it's players who were anomalies in the 1970's and 1980's, and then a bunch of players, and pretty good ones, too, who are playing now or have played recently. Obvioulsy, the game is changing.   Several years ago, when it looked like Jose Hernandez would break Bobby Bonds' long-standing record, his manager benched him toward the end of the year to keep his name out of the record books, and I blasted him for it, as did others. As far as I can tell, nobody else has been benched for that reason, but I could be wrong there.

I had thought that there was a general prejudice against the strikeout and this dubioous record, but it seems that Jerry Royster, trying to salvage what would become the worst finish in Brewers' history, is the only one. Of course, he was replaced by Ned Yost the next spring, so that didn't work. Managers appear to recognize now that if a hitter can smack 30 homers, drive in or score 100 runs, but he has to strikeout 200 times to do it, you'd better let him.