A Labour Day weekend thread about pitchers with 2,000 or more strikeouts with one franchise. As always stats from the wonderful @baseball_ref and @Stathead !

When Clayton Kershaw got his 2,000th strikeout as a Dodger, it meant that the Dodgers moved into a tie with the Braves at the top of the leaderboard with four pitchers with 2,000 or more career strikeouts for their respective franchises.

The names for both the Dodgers and Braves are familiar ones – for the Braves, Glavine, Phil Niekro, Smoltz and Spahn; for the Dodgers, Drysdale, Kershaw, Koufax and Sutton. But there are several other facts about this list that are interesting.

While two franchises have four pitchers on the list, no other has more than two. Seven franchises have two pitchers and seven more have one each. So only 16 franchises in baseball history have ANY 2,000 career strikeout pitchers.

Some surprising franchises are not on this list – the Chicago White Sox, the Cincinnati Reds, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Houston Astros, and the Washington Nationals (including the Montreal Expos as part of that franchise).

Some famous old franchises only have one – the Cubs (Fergie Jenkins), the Yankees (Andy Pettitte!) and the Cardinals (Bob Gibson) - so they have the same number as the Arizona Diamondbacks (Randy Johnson) and the Mets (the late Tom Seaver).

Of the seven franchises with two 2,000 strikeout pitchers, there are some wonderful odd couples. The Angels have Nolan Ryan (of course) but also Chuck Finley. The Red Sox have Roger Clemens (of course) but also Tim Wakefield.

Three franchises have representatives from very different generations and types of pitchers. The Tigers have Lolich and Verlander; the Twins/Senators have Walter Johnson and Bert Blyleven; the NY/SF Giants have Christy Mathewson and Juan Marichal.

Finally, it’s also interesting (and instructive) to see what happens when you drop the threshold from 2,000 strikeouts to “only” 1,500. The Giants go from two representatives to nine and lead the table. The Braves and Dodgers only go from four to six each.

The Yankees go from one to five (adding Whitey Ford, Ron Guidry, Red Ruffing and CC Sabathia to the list). And two pitchers now get on the list with two different teams each – Randy Johnson (the Diamondbacks and the Mariners), and Nolan Ryan (the Angels and the Astros).

Thanks for reading and happy long weekend!