Four-Strikeout Innings in Blue Jays History

On Monday, the Blue Jays fell victim to a bizarre ruling. Because the Jays failed to record a fourth out, Red Sox baserunner Anthony Seigler scored successfully from third base on a fly ball, even though he never tagged up. 

Most of the players on the field had no idea what was going on. Even John Schneider – who had seen the same ruling 10 years earlier – was confused. I spent 20 minutes explaining it to my wife, and she said she understood, but I wouldn't blame her if she were lying just to make me stop talking.

I think part of the confusion stems from the term "fourth out." The actual wording in the Official Baseball Rules is "apparent fourth out," with scare quotes around the latter two words. If the Blue Jays had made the necessary appeal to third base, they wouldn't have been credited with a fourth out. The original third out would no longer count, and the so-called "fourth out" would replace the preceding out as the official third out of the inning. 

An inning can't have more than three outs. Ever.

But it can have more than three strikeouts. 

Thanks to another quirky entry in the baseball rulebook, a strikeout isn't always an out. If the catcher doesn't catch strike three (and a double play isn't in order), the pitcher is still awarded a K, but the batter isn't necessarily out. He can take off for first, and the base is his if he makes it there safely.

So, hearing the words "fourth out" over and over again made me think back to Opening Day, when Jeff Hoffman put on the most Jeff Hoffman performance imaginable. He blew the save. He earned the win. He gave up a home run. And he struck out four batters in one inning of work.

Jeff Hoffman Pitches in 4K

Hoffman entered in the top of the ninth. The Blue Jays had a 2-1 lead. The top of the A's order was due up.

Nick Kurtz, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, led off. Hoffman and Alejandro Kirk caught him looking on Toronto's first challenge of the ABS era. Then Shea Langeliers tied the game with a shot to straightaway center. 

The next three batters all struck out swinging. Tyler Soderstrom swung over a slider, missing by nearly a foot, but the ball bounced past Kirk, allowing Soderstrom to reach first. Thankfully, Brent Rooker and Jacob Wilson embarrassed themselves just as badly, and the Blue Jays walked it off in the bottom of the ninth. 

Hoffman is one of only two pitchers to throw a four-strikeout inning this season. The other, unsurprisingly, is Mason Miller. The Padres closer leads NL relievers in strikeouts, while Hoffman, now with the Twins, leads relievers in the AL.

Before Hoffman, the last Blue Jay to strike out four batters in an inning was Mike Bolsinger. Don't feel bad, I had to Google him too. The soft-tossing righty pitched 11 games for a mediocre Blue Jays team in 2017.

On July 18, Bolsinger threw the final 3.1 frames of a 15-inning loss to the Red Sox. Until he gave up a walk-off home run to Hanley Ramirez, his work was impeccable. He retired the first 11 batters he saw. That included four swinging strikeouts in inning 13:

Take away that performance, and Bolsinger only struck out 18% of opponents in his brief tenure with the Jays. Hoffman was striking out batters nearly twice as often. Yet, in these two outings, they were very much alike. They're two of just three pitchers to throw a 4K inning in 50 seasons of Blue Jays baseball.

The very first Blue Jay to accomplish the feat was Steve Delabar in 2012. (As one would expect, four-strikeout innings are more common these days than they were in the early years of the Blue Jays' existence.) Delabar would pitch 143 games for Toronto from 2012-15, and his 4K inning came just two weeks into his Blue Jays tenure. 

On August 13, 2012, Delabar threw the final two frames of an extra-innings win over the White Sox. In the first of those innings, he struck out all four batters he faced:

Delabar was excellent in his first two years with the Blue Jays. He earned an All-Star nod in 2013, and later that summer, he threw the first immaculate inning (nine pitches, three strikeouts) in franchise history. From the trade deadline in 2012 through the end of the 2013 campaign, his 128 strikeouts ranked second among AL relievers. Unfortunately, he lost his strikeout stuff in 2014 and struggled through his latter seasons in Toronto.

Fittingly, the Blue Jays have only had three pitchers throw a 4K inning, but they have had four such seasons in their history. On September 17, 2024, Luis Frías and Erik Swanson combined to pull off the feat. In what would turn out to be his final big league appearance (to this point), Frías struck out three Rangers batters in the bottom of the eighth... but he also gave up a double, a home run, and three walks. With the bases loaded, Swanson came in to record the final out.

The Blue Jays have also been on the receiving end of a trio of 4K innings. The most recent was on April 23, 2021, with Tyler Glasnow on the mound. It took Glasnow nine batters to get those four strikeouts (Cavan Biggio, Bo Bichette, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and Danny Jansen), and the Blue Jays brought four runs across the plate. 

Several years earlier, Phil Hughes struck out J.P. Arencibia, Adeiny Hechavarria, Anthony Gose, and Brett Lawrie back-to-back-to-back-to-back on September 20, 2012:

On September 3, 1996, the Blue Jays' batters were dealt their very first 4K inning. The Royals' Kevin Appier struck out Ed Sprague, Carlos Delgado, Charlie O'Brien, and Alex Gonzalez in a dominant complete-game victory. 

Four-strikeout innings aren't as rare (or confusing) as fourth-out situations, but they're one of my favourite statistical quirks. I also think it's pretty darn cool that the Blue Jays have now had one of each in the same season. Now all they need is the ultra-rare four-strike at-bat to complete the "four of something that's usually three" challenge. (Unless that challenge really needs four components...?)