{"id":569564,"date":"2026-03-29T23:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569564\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T23:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:13:08","slug":"toronto-blue-jays-pitchers-set-mlb-record-with-50-strikeouts-in-first-three-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569564\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Blue Jays pitchers set MLB record with 50 strikeouts in first three games"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> started the 50th season in team history by striking out 50 batters in their opening series against the Athletics<\/a>, setting the major league record for strikeouts in the first three games of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cFiftieth-year anniversary of the Blue Jays and 50 strikeouts over three,\u201d manager John Schneider said. \u201cPretty round number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Gausman<\/a> set a Blue Jays opening day record by striking out 11 batters in six innings Friday. Dylan Cease<\/a> fanned 12 Saturday, the most by any pitcher making his Blue Jays debut. Eric Lauer<\/a> struck out nine Sunday as Toronto won the finale 5-2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe faced good pitching,\u201d Athletics<\/a> manager Mark Kotsay said. \u201cThey have some really good arms. Obviously, their frontline starters we had our hands full with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman<\/a> struck out four batters in the ninth inning of Friday\u2019s 3-2 win after Tyler Soderstrom<\/a> reached on a wild strike three.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Hoffman struck out a pair in the ninth to complete the sweep, ending the game by getting Max Muncy<\/a> swinging.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think (pitching coach) Pete (Walker) has a clause in his contract that may have just escalated, may have just triggered,\u201d Schneider joked. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to watch the whole collective effort in terms of putting a plan together and then going to execute it. It\u2019s fun to be part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 50 strikeouts tied the franchise record for the most strikeouts in a single series. Toronto pitchers needed four games to fan 50 Tigers in a season-opening series against Detroit in March, 2019.<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Ian Harrison, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The Toronto Blue Jays started the 50th season in team history by striking out 50…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,82,3302],"class_list":["post-569564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}