Yes, we know that baseball has changed. Players strike out more, pitchers throw fewer pitches and generally throw them harder, bunting is becoming a lost art and so on and so on and so on. We're not here to complain about the changes in the game, which are pretty natural because baseball has always evolved.
But this one statistic did catch our eye Monday morning.
The Cubs and Yankees set a major league record Sunday night when batters combined for 48 strikeouts in an 18-inning, six-hour-plus game that was eventually won by the Yankees 5-4. (Yes, that was former Twins outfielder Aaron Hicks scoring the winning run -- Where have you gone John Ryan Murphy? -- but that's also beside the point.)
The strikeout total for those two teams in one game was smaller than the total number of Twins that Twins catcher Brian Harper struck out in 921 plate appearances in 1989 and 1990 combined.
And then, in 1991 and 1992, Harper struck out 44 times in 1,015 plate appearances.
Yes, seriously.
In case you're wondering what Harper did when he hit the ball, his statistics over those four seasons included a .308 batting average, .340 on-base percentage and .433 slugging percentage. So it wasn't just contact for the sake of contact. Harper played one more season for the Twins and then finished his career with Milwaukee and Oakland.
After thinking about Harper's ability to make contact, we decided to put together a list of other Twins players who struck out fewer times in a season than the total from Sunday's Yankees-Cubs game.
