Kerry Wood was the talk of baseball early in 1998, and on a cold, wet day at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs the rookie was on fire, striking out 20 Astros batters in a 2-0 win over Houston.

Only three had done it before Max Scherzer in a nine-inning game, so Elias Sports Bureau didn’t need to reach deep into its record books to find Randy Johnson, Kerry Wood and Roger Clemens as the only ...