Royals’ Zack Greinke nears milestone only four others have reached in MLB history

Only 19 pitchers in Major League Baseball history have struck out more batters than the Royals’ Zack Greinke.

With his next win, Greinke will tie Catfish Hunter and Jim Bunning for 71st most at 224.

Greinke’s career ERA of 3.45 is the 13th best in MLB, among active pitchers.

Now in his 20th season, Greinke continues to add to what is an already impressive résumé. When he takes the mound Wednesday night, Greinke can add to his career strikeout total of 2,904.

That number includes 997 individual batters who gone down on strikes against Greinke. There’s a chance Greinke can get to 1,000 individual batters on Wednesday night, because the Orioles have nine players who haven’t whiffed against Greinke in their career, according to Ian Kraft, the Royals associate director of public relations.

Only four pitchers in Major League Baseball history have struck out 1,000 different players: Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens.

That’s an impressive list and Greinke can join it as early as Wednesday night.

And while that may seem like a quirky stat, here’s an even more unusual one, courtesy of the Baseball Doesn’t Exist Twitter account. Greinke has retired 30% of current Major League Baseball managers, and 20% of them have gone down on strikes.