Strikeout totals in major league baseball are up eight percent again before the weekend, rising to what would be a record 8.87 strikeouts per team per game. This portends to be the 14th consecutive season that strikeouts will rise. Compared to 2005, there were nearly 10,000 more strikeouts last season, cresting at 40,140 last year, as opposed to 30,644 in 2005.
But the jump in home runs, which has been seen as going hand to hand with strikeouts, has taken place only in the last four seasons, although starkly so, skyrocketing from 4,186 in 2014 to a record 6,015 last year.