Tonight was Brandon Morrow's last start of 2010, as the Jays are capping his innings around 150 for the year to make sure his arm is in great shape for next year. Although Morrow had a rough start to the year (his ERA ballooned to 6.69 at one point), he has pitched extremely well since June and has had a remarkable season, ending with a 10-7 record and a 4.49 ERA.
However, the thing that Brandon Morrow does best is strike batters out. He struck out 17 Rays in one game, and ended the year with 178 Ks. That puts him 11th all-time for Blue Jays pitchers for strikeouts in a season (tonight's stats are not included). You may notice that on that list, he also has fewer innings pitched than most pitchers, so we can look at his SO/9 IP, which is the average number of strikeouts a pitcher records per 9 innings (a complete game).
Morrow ended the year with 178 Ks in 146.1 IP, which means that his SO/9 IP was an astounding 10.95. This ranks as the second highest season SO/9 IP ever recorded by a Blue Jays' pitcher with at least 100 IP (Duane Ward had a SO/9 IP of 11.07 in 1991). If we look purely at starting pitchers, Morrow is only the third pitcher (after Roger Clemens and A.J. Burnett) to post a SO/9 IP of greater than 9 (meaning at least one strikeout per inning), and has the highest SO/9 IP of any Blue Jays starter ever.
So we can see that although Morrow didn't have the greatest season ever, it was certainly a step in the right direction. He is well set up for next year (as this previous post details) with a fresh arm, confidence gained from this year, and the ability to strike out almost any hitter in the American League on any given night.
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