Major League Baseball

Phil Hughes sets strikeouts-to-walks record, leads Twins over D-backs

Published Sep. 24, 2014 5:06 p.m. ET

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Phil Hughes set a single-season major league record for strikeout-to-walk ratio, pitching eight strong innings for the Minnesota Twins in a 2-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on a wet Wednesday afternoon.

Hughes (16-10) finished his first year with the Twins with the same number of wins and walks. With 186 strikeouts, his 11.63 ratio became the best of all time for pitchers with a qualifying amount of innings. Hughes beat Bret Saberhagen, who had 143 strikeouts and 13 walks for the New York Mets in 1994 for an 11.00 ratio.

Hughes struck out four without a walk and allowed only a sacrifice fly by David Peralta in the sixth.

The game was delayed 66 minutes by rain falling hard enough that it was dripping off the brim of Hughes' cap as he walked off the mound after the eighth. Jared Burton closed for his third save.

The delay may've cost Hughes $500,000. He finished with 209-2/3 innings, one out short of triggering that bonus. Hughes, whose base salary is $8 million, already earned a pair of $250,000 bonuses for reaching 180 and 195 innings.

Diamondbacks starter Vidal Nuno escaped with only two runs allowed in five innings despite loading the bases in the first two frames.

Kurt Suzuki walked to force in a run in the first inning, and Trevor Plouffe hit a sacrifice fly in the second.

That pushed Plouffe's RBI total to 80, making him just the third player for the Twins in the last four seasons to reach that modest mark. In 2012, Josh Willingham had 110 and Joe Mauer had 85.

Plouffe left the game four innings later with a broken left forearm after trying to tag A.J. Pollock on a steal of third base.

Nuno finished 0-7 with a 3.76 ERA in 14 turns for the Diamondbacks since he was acquired July 6 from the New York Yankees in the Brandon McCarthy trade. He went 2-5 with a 5.42 ERA in 17 appearances for the Yankees.

Paid attendance was 29,445 for the home finale, though the number of people in the park was probably one-third of that and far less once the rain came. That gave the Twins a season total of 2,250,606 tickets sold, the fewest in five years at Target Field and the lowest number since 2004.