Whiff-o-rama

 Eternal verities don't get much more eternal, or much more, I don't know, verity-ish, than the ones that cling to baseball like Spanish moss on a southern oak. One of the most clingy, of course, is this: Baseball is its history.

The most American of our games lives it, breathes it, eats it. The game's caretakers have  celebrated it when convenient, and just as often papered over it when it wasn't. But baseball's history, and the mythology in which it frequently comes wrapped, has always defined its place in the national mosaic.

Which brings us, in the Blob's usual convoluted way, to Rafael Devers of the Boston Red Sox.

He's the Bosox' new DH, having moved there from third base to make room for Boston's prize offseason acquisition, Alex Bregman. And last night, he went hitless in four at-bats in a 4-3 loss to Texas, striking out three times.

The last is significant, because it means Rafael Devers is now a part of that unconquerable baseball history. Albeit not in a good way.

Those three strikeouts, see, were Devers' eighth, ninth and tenth of the infant season. That's 10 Ks in three games to start the campaign, making Devers the alltime Whiff-O-Rama king of early-season futility.

Prior to last night, no player in the history of the modern game had ever struck out 10 times in the first three games of the season. That goes back all the way to 1901, when the Boston Beaneaters were a thing. Cy Young was still pitching then. Ty Cobb was 15 years old and four years away from his major-league debut with the Tigers. Babe Ruth was just 6, but already raising so much hell his parents shipped him off to reform school a year later.

In other words, Devers' futility has some significant historic weight to it.

The strikeout record he broke, after all, was nine in three games, and in 124 years only five players had even done that. The latest were Jack Cust of the Rockies, Will Benson of the Reds and Brent Rooker of the A's, all in the last three years; the first were Wally Post of the Reds in 1956 and Greg Luzinski of the Phillies in 1974.

I wouldn't know the first three if they swung a bat at my head and missed. Post and Luzinski, though ... well, now you're talkin'.

Just for fun, and perhaps to give Devers a measure of comfort, I looked up what Post and Luzinski went on to do in those two signature years. I suspected they weren't as awful as those first three games suggested, and I was right.

Luzinski, it turns out, played in just 85 games but batted .272 with seven homers and 48 RBI. He struck out 76 times, less than one whiff per game.

And Post?

Well, Wally batted .248 with 36 jacks and 83 ribbies. He struck out 124 times in 143 games, which works out to 0.86 per game.

Not a bad year, all in all. And perhaps an encouraging sign to Red Sox fans that Devers' current funk won't last forever.

Of course, if it does, Red Sox management could always fire up the time machine and ship back to the 1901 Beaneaters. What a fate that would be.