Jim Deshaies and the expanding Eight Strikeouts open a game club

Thirty-seven years after appearing on a baseball trading card alongside two Hall of Famers, Jim Deshaies has an idea for another collectible involving himself and three well-known, still-active stars. None of them were born when Deshaies created a signature moment that is now being matched, equaled or surpassed with increasing frequency.

“What I would like is a ball with the signatures of all these guys,” said Deshaies. “That would be fun.”

But the only four pitchers in modern times to start a game with at least eight consecutive strikeouts – Deshaies, Jacob deGrom, German Marquez and Pablo Lopez – had better hurry up and gather around a baseball before their club grows again.

The quartet nearly became a quintet – or sextet – twice in less than three weeks earlier this season. Tigers right-hander Jack Flaherty struck out the first seven Cardinals batters he faced on April 30.

Nineteen days later – while Deshaies, a Cubs sportscaster, watched and commentated on the game from the Marquee Sports Network booth – Pirates phenom Paul Skenes missed the first seven Chicago batters he faced.

“I did it back when the guys didn’t have so many strikeouts,” Deshaies said with a grin before broadcasting the Cubs’ game against the Mets on May 1.

Fans – especially baseball card collectors of a certain age – will always associate Deshaies with the feat he accomplished on Sept. 23, 1986, when the Astros’ rookie left-hander struck out the first eight Dodgers in a 4-0 victory. Deshaies, who finished with a two-hitter, broke the modern record set just months earlier by another left-hander, Joe Cowley of the White Sox, who struck out the first seven batters he faced on May 28 against the Rangers.

“That’s the ultimate irony of the whole thing – I’ve normally been a really slow starter,” said Deshaies, who believes he may have been a little fresher against the Dodgers because he missed his previous start because of a sore arm. “So for me to even have a strikeout run to start a game is really bizarre.”

Also, Deshaies was generally not a strikeout-prone pitcher during his 12-year career, in which he went 84-95 with a 4.14 ERA. He averaged a career-high eight strikeouts per nine innings in 1986 and only surpassed 150 strikeouts in a season once, when he struck out 153 batters in 225 2/3 innings in 1989.

But no one could match Deshaies’ fast start until Sept. 15, 2014, when deGrom, in the midst of a season with the Mets in which he was Rookie of the Year, missed the first eight Marlins he faced before pitcher Jarred Cosart hit a single. DeGrom struck out 13 hitters in seven innings but played no role in the Mets’ 6-5 loss (of course not). The Rockies’ Marquez joined the club on Sept. 26, 2018, when he struck out the first eight Phillies he faced in a 14-0 victory. Lopez broke the record — and finally missed the opposing pitcher — on July 11, 2021, when the Marlins right-hander struck out the first nine Braves.

“I had that moment and I held on to it as long as I could,” Deshaies said before grinning. “I was like, ‘Come on, deGrom, you don’t have to do that. You have all this other stuff going for you. (And) Marquez and Lopez, right?'”

DeGrom is a two-time Cy Young Award winner and has the lowest ERA (2.53) of any starting pitcher since World War II. Marquez and Lopez have both made an All-Star team.

“That’s one of the funny things about baseball, isn’t it?” Deshaies said. “How a relatively ordinary guy does something that puts him in the company of these other people. It’s kind of funny.”

Deshaies held the record for much longer than he was in the spotlight in the Astros locker room. The day after Deshaies’s smash, Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan pitched a no-hitter into the seventh inning and threw a two-hitter in a 6-0 win over the Giants that tied the NL West title.

Mike Scott then secured the title in Ryan-like fashion on September 24, when he threw a no-hitter in a 2-0 victory over the Giants.

“I was in the locker room after the game, shaving next to Alan Ashby, and I said, ‘Hey Ash, do you think Nolan would give me more of the spotlight since I’m a rookie?'” Deshaies said. “And Ashby said, ‘Well, I think Scotty is going to come out tomorrow and steal the show from both of you.'”

Deshaies donated the cleats of his record-setting performance to the Hall of Fame and received the baseball for the milestone strikeout from manager Jim Ewell, who wrote the date and eight red “Ks” on it. Donruss produced a card commemorating his performance in its 1986 highlights set, while Topps featured him among the record-breakers opening the 1987 set.

Sportflics, the maker of 3D baseball cards, put Deshaies on a card with Mike Schmidt, who hit his 500th home run in 1986, and Don Sutton, who won his 300th game.

“Mike Schmidt, Don Sutton and me,” said Deshaies. “Wow, what am I doing here with these guys?”

Maybe soon he’ll at least be hanging out with deGrom, Marquez and Lopez at baseball.

“We’ll have Lopez sign the sweet spot and everything around it,” Deshaies said with another grin.