Interesting Streaks I - Kirk's K's

Oakland starter Kirk Saarlos, earlier in the season, went nearly four weeks between strikeouts! On May 28, he struck out Casey Blake leading off the fifth inning. He then pitched to 82 batters over 19.1 innings without striking out any of them, until he threw that elusive third strike by Richie Sexson on June 23. (If I had more time, I'd love to find out how many hitters he got two strikes on and didn't finish off.)

He actually went three consecutive starts without a single K! Impressively, two of those starts were against Atlanta and Philadelphia, teams that are near the top 10 in whiffs. Of course, in his next start he fanned 7.

He's struck out one or none in an incredible 55% of starts (11 of 20), and has exceeded three only twice! In addition, before this K-less streak, he had another 36-batter steak, making Blake the only strikeout in a 119-batter stretch!

He's the only pitcher in history to have more K's in his name than in his game!

Extra Esoterica: The scores of the last five games Saarloos has started: 5-2, 5-4, 5-2, 5-4, 5-2. In fact, Saarloos hasn't started a game in which either team scored more than five runs since May 28! Only twice in his 20 starts have teams combined to score more than ten runs, including his last 17. Weird.