By Katrina Sirotta
Just three of the top 10 active home run leaders in the regular season are also in the top 10 for the postseason. It’s a different story for pitchers, whose regular-season success seems to translate more directly to the postseason, with six of the active regular-season strikeout leaders also making the top 10 in postseason stats.
Jose Altuve heads active hitters with the most postseason home runs
Their sign-stealing scandal might taint the Houston Astros’ 2017 World Series title, but there’s no denying Jose Altuve’s dominance in the playoffs. The second baseman didn’t see postseason play until 2015 and missed it in 2016, but he’s knocked in 23 postseason home runs despite reaching the playoffs for only six seasons — four more than the #2 player on the list, first baseman Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Forty-two-year-old Pujols just finished his last season in the MLB. In the 86 postseason games he’s played, Pujols has 19 home runs, 95 hits, and 54 RBIs. He’ll always be remembered for his three-home-run game in the 2011 World Series. George Springer is tied with Pujols with 19 postseason home runs. He was Altuve’s teammate during the Astros’ World Series run and is known for hitting a home run in five straight World Series games.
Seven active pitchers have 100 strikeouts or more in the postseason
The narrative around Clayton Kershaw is that he’s cursed in the playoffs, but his stats tell a different story. The starting pitcher on the Los Angeles Dodgers may have a postseason ERA of 4.19 throughout 37 appearances, but pair that with 207 strikeouts and even a save, and he’s pretty dominant.
The Astros’ Justin Verlander is not far behind Kershaw with 205 postseason strikeouts. At third among active pitchers is Max Scherzer, who’s been a weapon on several teams since his 2008 MLB debut. He made his first World Series appearance in 2012 with the Detroit Tigers and won a ring with the 2019 Washington Nationals.
This story originally appeared on OddsSeeker.com and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
