Jack Flaherty was on fire during his start for the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday afternoon against his former team, the St. Louis Cardinals.
Flaherty opened the start with seven consecutive strikeouts, matching an American League record with former Chicago White Sox pitchers Joe Cowley (1986) and Carlos Rodon (2016), former Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Blake Snell (2018) and Seattle Mariners pitcher Luis Castillo (2021).
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Former Miami Marlins pitcher Pablo Lopez set the MLB and National League record, striking out nine batters to begin a game in 2021.
Flaherty finished with 14 strikeouts in 6.2 innings. However, the Tigers only gave him one run in support, and Detroit lost the first game of a day/night doubleheader to St. Louis, 2-1.
“I didn’t realize he was seven [strikeouts] in a row,” Tigers catcher Carson Kelly said, via MLB.com. “Pretty cool. I just kept throwing the ball to third after a couple pitches. Great for Jack, excited for him to continue to build off this one.”
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Flaherty has started six games for the Tigers this season and has a 4.00 ERA with an AL-leading 50 strikeouts.
“I knew it would be emotional for him to pitch against the Cardinals, the team that he grew up in the big leagues with,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch added. “What I didn’t know was he was going to bring his best fastball in the first inning and then just take off, and dominate.”
The Tigers got the Cardinals back in the second game of the doubleheader.
Wenceel Pérez hit a home run from both sides of the plate for Detroit and the Tigers won the game, 11-6.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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