Gallardo reaches 'special' milestone with 1,000th K
Brewers righty tossed eight scoreless frames against Marlins Monday
MIAMI -- Yovani Gallardo's eight shutout innings in the Brewers' 6-1 win over the Marlins on Monday night marked more than the right-hander's best outing this season.
With one out in the bottom of the seventh, Gallardo fanned Miami rookie phenom Marcell Ozuna swinging for his 1,000th career strikeout. Gallardo struck out four batters total -- Ozuna twice.
"I think it's always something special to achieve things like that," Gallardo said. "Getting 1,000 strikeouts is a big number. It's a lot of work and a lot of pitches thrown. It's one of the goals and hopefully you keep moving forward to get to the next one."
He is the third Brewer to reach 1,000 strikeouts, trailing Ben Sheets (1,206) and Teddy Higuera (1,081) for the all-time franchise lead.
"It's a good feeling. All the guys in here knew how many I needed to get there," Gallardo said. "It's the little things in baseball that you achieve that are special. The main things are team goals, but you have little things that you achieve throughout the years, and that strikeout was one that means a lot. But you can't stop there. Hopefully we move forward and get some more."
Despite sporting a disappointing 4.74 ERA in 14 starts, Gallardo leads Milwaukee with 64 strikeouts. He has finished among the Top 10 strikeout leaders in the National League during each of the past four seasons, fanning an average of 203.8 batters.
However, Gallardo's strikeout numbers have been down recently.
After striking out 9.4 per nine innings from 2009-2012, Gallardo's mark is down to 7.05. His lowest single-season rate when making 17 or more starts was 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings during his rookie season in 2007.
Gallardo earned his 1,000th career strikeout one week shy of the sixth anniversary of his first. He recorded his first MLB punchout on June 18, 2007, fanning Ryan Klesko looking during the first inning of a 5-4 win against the Giants at Miller Park.
Just like his season-best outing against the Marlins on Monday night, Gallardo struck out four batters in his MLB debut.