Germán Márquez carves himself a piece of history on his 700th career strikeout

The first game of Thursday’s double header against the New York Mets marked Rockies’ frontman Germán Márquez’s 120th career game in a big league uniform. He pitched a gem, throwing for six innings while allowing just three hits and striking out six. His one mistake came on a misplaced slider that barely squeaked out of the yard to give the Rockies the loss. What’s important, however, are those six strikeouts.

In the bottom of the third inning, Márquez tallied his 700th and 701st career strikeouts, earning himself a place in baseball history among other big league pitchers from his home country. Márquez has the most career strikeouts of any Venezuelan pitcher through their first 120 games with 702, beating out his idol Félix Hernández’s 700. At just 26-years-old, Márquez is both the fastest and youngest player in franchise history to 700 strikeouts. In comparison, his teammate Jon Gray tallied his 700th strikeout back in April at age 29.

Germán first came to the Rockies in 2016 in a trade from the Tampa Bay Rays, and made his big league debut in September of that season. Since then, he has cemented himself as a fan favorite and one of the Rockies’ all time greats. He owns the franchises’ sixth most career strikeouts with 702, and fifth best pitching bWAR with 13.6—behind Rockies greats like Aaron Cook, Ubaldo Jiménez, and Jorge De La Rosa. He has the team’s fifth best career ERA at 4.26 with the team’s best career K/9 and BB/9 with 9.122/2.648 and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.446. Márquez signed a five year, $43M contract extension with the Rockies in 2019 that keeps him in Purple through the 2024 season.

With the team in a state of transition and potentially starting a rebuild, Márquez gives fans someone to watch and be excited about.