Platinum Sombrero! Chris Davis is first player to strike out five times this season - MLB

If you had to pick which player would be the first to strike out five times in a game this season “someone on the Orioles” would be a pretty good guess.

Mark Reynolds led the league with more than 200 strikeouts in each of the past three seasons and leads the AL with 170 this year, but surprisingly he’s never whiffed five times in a game and instead it was teammate Chris Davis who took a Platinum Sombrero today against the Yankees.

Of course, Davis’ career strikeout rate of one every 3.1 plate appearances is nearly identical to Reynolds’ one every 3.0 plate appearances. Davis just hasn’t had the same number of chances because he hasn’t hit as well as Reynolds.

In whiffing five times today Davis became the first player with a five-strikeout game since Ryan Howard on August 24 of last season. He had a sixth at-bat in the 11th inning and fell behind in the count 0-2, but grounded out to second base with the bases loaded.

Sammy Sosa is the all-time leader with four such games, followed by Ray Lankford with three and nine different players with two apiece (including active hitters Jim Thome, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rios, and Andruw Jones).

Congrats!

CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”