2016 Chachi #35 Vince Velasquez HL - 16 Strikeout Game

Phillies 3, Padres 0
Game 10 - Thursday Afternoon, April 14th in Philadelphia
Record - 5-5, 2nd place, 3 games behind the Nationals

One Sentence Summary:  Vince Velasquez delivered one of the best pitching performances in recent Phillies history, pitching a complete game shutout and striking out 16 Padres.

What It Means:  A few of the Phillies beat writers Tweeted out the following impressive information:

• Velasquez became 7th player in baseball history with at least 16 strikeouts and zero walks in a complete game shutout, joining Max Scherzer, Roger Clemens (twice), Randy Johnson, Kerry Wood and Dwight Gooden.
• Velasquez joins Art Mahaffey and Cole Hamels as the only three Phillies pitchers 23 or younger with at least 14 strikeouts in a game.
• 25 strikeouts through his first two Phillies starts are the most by any pitcher in the modern era. Jim Bunning had struck out 20 in his first two starts in 1964.
• His 16 strikeouts were the most by a Phillies pitcher since Cliff Lee struck out 16 on May 6, 2011.

What Happened:  Ryan Howard accounted for two of the Phillies three runs with a solo home run in the second (his 3rd of the year) and a sacrifice fly in the sixth.

Velesquez needed 113 pitches for his gem, and he allowed only three hits.  He retired 22 of the final 23 batters he faced.

Featured Card:  Velasquez's pitching performance earns him the first Chachi Highlight card for the year, which uses a template based on the 1970 Topps World Series cards subset.

Hopefully we'll also be receiving a Topps Now card to commemorate Velasquez's performance.

Transaction:  On Thursday morning, it was announced that reliever Daniel Stumpf had received an 80-game suspension for the use of banned PEDs.  He was placed on the restricted list by the Phillies and Elvis Araujo was recalled to take his place on the roster.

This is a huge disappointment.  Stumpf was selected from the Royals in the annual Rule 5 draft, and he'll be eligible to return to the Phillies on July 1st.

Recently added to The Phillies Room - 2016 Season Summary page with game results and links to game summary posts.