Five wild stats that highlight Robbie Ray’s remarkable season for the Blue Jays

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This article was published 31/08/2021 (1513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Robbie Ray has been nothing short of sensational for the Toronto Blue Jays this season.

With the Jays struggling to find any sort of rhythm, the 29-year-old southpaw has been a model of consistency.

Ray has always been a high-strikeout pitcher and had his ups and downs through six seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but his incredible year with the Jays now has him in the American League Cy Young conversation.

Here are five wild stats that demonstrate the kind of year it has been for Ray:

Top of the mountain

With seven innings pitched against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday, Ray reached 1,000 for his career. He has 1,241 strikeouts in that span.

That’s the most strikeouts through a player’s first 1,000 innings in MLB history, passing Yu Darvish’s previous record of 1,222 Ks.

Strikeout master

Further to the above stat, Ray’s killer instinct on the mound is demonstrated through his high strikeout rate.

His 11.18 strikeouts per nine innings, as it currently stands, is the best mark in MLB history.

Rounding out the top five on that list: Chris Sale, Darvish, Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer. Decent company.

Walking it back

Ray struggled mightily last season, which in addition to his expiring contract is in part why the Jays were able to trade for him at such a low cost.

The most glaring issue for Ray was his high walk rate, as he led the league in that unfortunate statistic at 7.8 per nine innings. Ray walked a total of 45 batters in 51 2/3 innings last season.

This season? He has walked 38 batters in 159 1/3 innings. That’s 2.1 per nine innings.

Toronto royalty

By becoming the second pitcher in baseball to quickly reach 200 strikeouts this year, Ray also became only the second Blue Jay to accomplish the feat in 26 games or fewer.

The first to do it? Roger Clemens in 1997.

Home sweet home

While the pandemic hasn’t allowed Ray to spend much of his Blue Jays tenure playing at the Rogers Centre, he sure has made himself at home since the team returned to Toronto.

In five starts at the *actual* home ballpark, Ray has:

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• 1-0 record (who needs run support?)

• 1.59 ERA

• 0.85 WHIP

• .183 OPP AVG

• 44 strikeouts

• 7 walks

Bonus stat

On this day one year ago, Ray was acquired by the Jays from the Diamondbacks in exchange for Travis Bergen.

He re-upped with the Jays in the off-season at just $8 million (U.S.) for one year.

Bergen, who was drafted by Toronto in the seventh round in 2015 and made his MLB debut in 2019, was reacquired by the Jays back in February for cash considerations. He’s pitched primarily out of the bullpen and has appeared in 10 games this season.

Braydon Holmyard is a Star sports team editor based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @braydonholmyard