Minnesota Twins first baseman Miguel Sanó made history on Saturday when he became the fastest player in Major League Baseball history to record 1,000 strikeouts.
Sanó reached the dubious milestone in the ninth inning of the Twins’ loss to the Toronto Blue Jays after striking out in three pitches against Jordan Romano. He reached the 1,000 strikeout mark in his 661st career game, surpassing Mark Reynolds who accomplished the feat in 747 games.
Miguel Sanó makes major-league history today:
Fastest to 1,000 Career Strikeouts
661 Games — Miguel Sanó
747 — Mark Reynolds
816 — Chris Davis
828 — Rob Deer
843 — Ryan Howard
848 — Giancarlo Stanton
874 — Adam Dunn
927 — Pete Incaviglia
938 — Russell Branyan
948 — B.J. Upton— Phil Miller (@MillerStrib) September 18, 2021
While Twins fans believed San�� could be a historic player as a prospect, this isn’t the kind of record they had in mind. Instead, Sanó has been one of the bigger disappointments this season, hitting .222/.309/.474 with 29 homers and 164 strikeouts.
In a way, 2021 has been a microcosm of Sanó’s career. He can be one of the most powerful hitters in baseball when he makes contact and even hit a 495-foot home run earlier this season. But the strikeouts have piled up and left him short of the potential he flashed during his lone All-Star appearance in 2017.
Sanó will be entering the final year of a three-year extension in 2022 but his future in Minnesota remains cloudy. With the Twins in need of pitching, Sanó could be on the trade block to a team that believes they can tap into his potential.
But at age 28, it’s likely that this is the player Sanó has become. For a prospect that Torii Hunter once compared to Miguel Cabrera, his career has been a disappointment and one that Twins fans lament what could have been.
