Gausman solidifying himself as one of the best strikeout artists in Blue Jays history

34-year-old Kevin Gausman is only in his fourth season with the Toronto Blue Jays but he's already matching up with some of the best pitchers in the history of this nearly 50 year-old franchise. With 739 strikeouts as a member of the Blue Jays in 676.1 innings pitched, gives him a 9.83 K/9 rate. That's the fourth best among Toronto pitchers who have thrown a minimum of 230 innings.

He's ahead of memorable names like Duane Ward (9.28) and Brandon Morrow (9.38) and trails only Roger Clemens (10.16), Yusei Kikuchi (10.20) and Tom Henke (10.29) in that category. He led the league in K/9 with Toronto in 2023 with an 11.5 rate - the second highest of his career and also had a league leading 237 strikeouts overall, which also topped all of Major League Baseball. Two of his top K/9 rates have come in two years with Toronto as he also spotted a 10.6 rate in 2022.

Meanwhile, with eight strikeouts against the Rockies on Wednesday, Gausman recorded his 39 game of eight strikeouts or more with the Blue Jays. He now trails only Roy Halladay who threw 47 such games, while he's tied with Clemens for second. Others on that list include Juan Guzman (37), Morrow (33) J.A. Happ (30) and Dave Stieb (28).

With 116 starts as a Blue Jay, Gausman has averaged throwing a game of eight strikeouts or more every three starts. 19 of his highest strikeout games have come as a member of the Blue Jays, including his top three. He had two, 13 strikeout performance in 2023, one on June 6 against the Astros and one on April 29 against the Mariners. He also punched out 12 hitters on June 27 against his former team, the Giants.

Gausman has had an interesting trajectory over his career where he has become more of a strikeout pitcher, later into his career. His K/9 rate hovered around 8.1 over the first-six seasons of his career from ages 22-27. Over the next seven years, from ages 28-34, he started averaging 10.1 K/9 per season.

Gausman won't be a free agent until the end of next season, so he has another full year to keep chasing strikeout history as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays.