Monday, May 3, 2010

Trivia: Going Platinum

According to Wikipedia, the reason that a four-strikeout performance by a batter is known as the golden sombrero is because some people thought this feat should be considered "bigger" than a hat trick in hockey (three goals). Five strikeouts in a game is known as "The Olympic Rings" (of which there are five) or "The Platinum Sombrero." And six strikeouts in a game? That's known as "The Horn" (named after Sam Horn who accomplished the feat in 1991) or "The Titanium Sombrero." No batter has ever struck out seven times in an MLB game.

Among currently active MLB players, which batter has the most career games with five strikeouts?

3 comments:

Pauly said...

first name that popped into my head is Adam Dunn.

Greg McConnell said...

Good guess Pauly, but this guy is in the American League. He's also a former Indian.

Greg McConnell said...

Oops... looks like I messed up. I got my info from this Baseball Reference blog post, but the problem is that the post is 2.5 years old. I thought the answer was Jim Thome, who achieved 5 K's in one game twice. But now it looks as though that's only half right. In 2009, Alex Rios joined Thome with two 5 K games in his career. And too bad for Rios, unlike Thome, both of his 5 K games were in 9-inning games (not extra innings).

Sorry, folks. Looks like I owe you a refund. I'll try harder next time....