Listening to the Twins tonight and hearing my fellow high-school alumnus Joe Mauer strike out it occurred to me that he’s been doing this a lot lately. It turns out that Joe is whiffing at double his normal rate. However, this has had no effect on his performance other that saving him the trouble of legging out ground-ball outs. (I think that is Joe’s plan all along, that is, preserving energy.) Anyways, by racking up so many “K”s Mauer accomplished a 15-game hitting streak during which he struck out at least once in each game. According to Elias Sports Bureau, that breaks the previous record of 11 games for this oddly hot/cold hitting–at least since 1910, when the major leagues began keeping track of strikeouts.
That reminds me of a fellow I golfed with on Monday at a charity outing where we played best ball. He led off our four-some on the first tee with a mighty swing that raised a lot of dust but not the ball. Re-gathering his wits he swung even harder, but to no avail–the golf ball remained teed up. But the third time proved the charm–an awesome drive straight and far down the fairway that ended up being our best ball–none of the others of us could top it. So that works…albeit it is very nerve wracking for spectators, I must say.