James Paxton came on board after the 40 in 40 series was completed for this year, so he didn’t get one, and he also pitched mostly on the backfields in spring training, with only eight Cactus League innings. That means that we didn’t fix our beady little LL eyes too closely on Pax in pre-season, other than marveling over his 17 strikeouts in 8.1 innings.
Obviously Paxton won’t be facing greener-than-green players like San Francisco’s Marco Luciano in the regular season, but expecting the Big Maple to continue to be a strikeout machine isn’t outlandish. Paxton has struck out 30% of batters, or close to it, in each of the past four seasons.