{"id":668825,"date":"2026-04-07T17:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/668825\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:49:13","slug":"astros-all-star-once-had-near-impossible-5-strikeouts-in-1-inning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/668825\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros All-Star once had near-impossible 5 strikeouts in 1 inning"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are three outs in an inning in a baseball game.<\/p>\n

Technically, though, a pitcher could record an infinite number of strikeouts in an inning.<\/p>\n

If the third strike is dropped with first base open and less than two outs, or with two outs no matter what, the batter-runner can attempt to reach first. The ball has to be thrown to the bag (or the batter-runner tagged) before he gets there.<\/p>\n

If the batter-runner gets to first safely, it’s recorded as a strikeout statistically, but it’s not an official out in the inning.<\/p>\n

That’s how Houston Astros<\/a> pitcher Joe Niekro once recorded five strikeouts in one inning.<\/p>\n

It was April 7, 1976 — Niekro was a knuckleballer, and two batters reached base in the frame on wild pitches due to the movement of the knuckler.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Yankees outfielder once battled ostrich in 11-plate spaghetti-eating contest<\/a><\/p>\n

It clearly was dancing, though, because the batters couldn’t touch it. So Niekro just kept striking guys out until his catcher could handle three of the pitches.<\/p>\n

It was technically an exhibition game on the eve of Opening Day, so it doesn’t stand as an MLB record. But it more or less is one.<\/p>\n

Niekro died in 2006 after retiring in 1988 at the age of 43.<\/p>\n

He won 221 games in his MLB career with a 3.59 ERA.<\/p>\n

Niekro, the brother of Phil, made one All-Star team and won the 1987 World Series with the Minnesota Twins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He played for the Astros, Tigers, Cubs, Yankees, Braves, Twins and Padres.<\/p>\n

Originally from Martins Ferry, Ohio, and a college player at West Liberty in West Virginia, Niekro rode his knuckleball to an incredible baseball career — and to an inning in which he recorded two more strikeouts than actual outs.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are three outs in an inning in a baseball game. Technically, though, a pitcher could record an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,139,54,3211,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-668825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-houstonastros","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116364690518807105","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}