There’s a new Colorado strikeout king.
Cubs right-hander racked up nine Ks in Chicago’s 2-1 win over Milwaukee on Thursday at Wrigley Field, and with that, surpassed Hall of Famer Roy Halladay for the most strikeouts by a Colorado-born pitcher.
Gausman’s K tally now stands at 2,119 over 14 sea
sons, besting Halladay’s mark of 2,117 over 16 seasons. Gausman, a former Grandview star, says the achievement of passing a two-time Cy Young winner who threw a perfect game and a playoff no-hitter feels a little surreal.
“Obviously Roy was one of the best pitchers of his generation, so (passing his strikeout mark) is something that has always seemed unobtainable,” Gausman said. “He’s one of the best to ever do it, so to be mentioned in the same sentence as him, you know you’re doing something right. I definitely don’t take this lightly.”
Gausman had long wore No. 34 — Halladay’s number with the Phillies — as a nod to the Arvada West legend. Gausman wore No. 37 and No. 39 at the start of his career with the Orioles, but when Halladay died in a plane crash on November 7, 2017, Gausman decided to change his number to 34 for the 2018 season.
He also wore No. 34 in San Francisco, where he was an All-Star in 2021, and for the past four-plus seasons with the Blue Jays. In Toronto — where Halladay wore No. 32, which is retired by the club — Gausman again made the All-Star team in 2023 and was a pillar on the Blue Jays’ American League pennant team last season.
Toronto in exchange for a pair of prospects. While the Blue Jays currently remain in the thick of a deep American League wild card chase, the Cubs are sitting five games up in the second National League wild card spot.
Gausman is 4-1 with a 4.37 ERA in six starts for Chicago, where he is wearing No. 12 because the last Cub to wear No. 34 was Jon Lester. The southpaw wore the number during the team’s 2016 World Series championship season and through the end of his Chicago tenure in 2020. Prior to Lester, No. 34 was worn
So last month, Gausman thought a change of number would be best upon his arrival on the North Side. Gausman’s daughters picked out his Cubs No. 12, the same number he
“When I got traded, the Cubs asked me what number I wanted, and I was like, ‘Does anybody have 34?’ And they were like, ‘Um, well, no, but we haven’t given it out to anybody since Jon,'” Gausman said. “I didn’t need any extra pressure (with the weight No. 34 carries in Chicago), so I just decided to let that be Lester’s (and Wood’s) thing.”
Gausman has made his name as a premier starter with his splitter, but before adopting that pitch as his signature during his big-league career, he modeled his arsenal after Halladay’s. Gausman was a sinker/breaking ball pitcher in his high school, college and minor-league days, and took cues from watching Halladay dominate with two particular pitches via a sinker paired with a dominating cutter.
“I was a sinker guy for a long time, and Roy was definitely the reason for that,” Gausman said. “If you turned on the TV and watched him pitch, it was ground ball after ground ball, and a lot of weak contact. I always wanted to throw a cutter because of him… he was so good going in on lefties with the cutter, and then throwing the front-hip sinker right after.
“… He was so much fun to watch compete, and that competitiveness is something I’ve always tried to emulate.”
While Gausman has now passed Halladay in strikeouts, he won’t ever catch the late right-hander in other metrics such as wins (Halladay had 203 to Gausman’s 121), WAR (64.2 to 29.4) and complete games (67 to 4), though the two pitchers’ career ERAs are similar (3.38 to 3.86).
No other Colorado-born pitcher , with Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage the closest at 1,502. Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland is the only other Coloradan with more than 1,000 Ks at 1,047, which ranks second in club history behind German Marquez’s 1,069.
Halladay’s legacy lives on in Colorado via the , which is presented annually to the top high school senior baseball player, scholar and citizen in the state. Gausman is on the selection committee for that award, as is Freeland.
