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Lots of Ks and Lots of Runs

In their unlikely win Opening Night, the Astros pulled off a fairly rare feat. How many teams have scored so many runs while striking out so often?

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Despite their $20M payroll and facing one of the toughest teams of the last three seasons, the Astros showed how much game-by-game variability exists in the majors, winning 8-2. However, it wasn't the prettiest scoring outburst, as they struck out 13 of their 35 plate appearances. Only nine games have seen the winning team score at least eight runs and strike out at least 37% of their PAs.

Rk Date Tm Opp Rslt PA H HR BB SO WPA RE24 aLI LOB
1 2013-03-31 HOU TEX W 8-2 35 9 1 3 13 0.277 4.232 .600 3
2 2007-09-21 BOS TBD W 8-1 45 9 3 6 17 0.082 3.146 .802 10
3 2006-09-19 PIT LAD W 10-6 40 11 2 2 15 0.293 5.087 .775 3
4 2006-07-24 ATL PHI W 10-8 40 10 4 3 15 0.374 4.896 .587 3
5 2005-06-14 DET SDP W 8-4 35 9 1 2 13 0.396 3.902 .717 3
6 2000-07-26 TOR CLE W 8-1 36 9 4 5 14 0.200 3.075 .447 4
7 1998-04-10 BOS SEA W 9-7 39 6 2 5 15 0.693 4.385 1.411 6
8 1997-06-28 ATL PHI W 9-1 40 11 4 5 15 0.261 4.812 .311 7
9 1993-04-18 DET SEA W 8-7 39 12 1 3 15 0.920 3.577 1.246 6
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/1/2013.

Like most of the games above, the Astros left very few men on base, scoring in bunches. As you can imagine, the BABIPs are very high, with the 1993 Tigers posting the highest at a .579 BABIP. Some of the losing starters in this group include Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, Cole Hamels, and Bartolo Colon, so Matt Harrison isn't in such bad company.