Giancarlo Stanton is a great baseball player — but he ain’t Joltin’ Joe.
Aside from three massive home runs, Stanton is off to a miserable start with the New York Yankees. The outfielder/designated hitter already has gone at least 0-for-5 with five strikeouts in two separate games this season, a single-season record for the live-ball era (1920-present). Furthermore, in 10 games with the Bronx Bombers to date, Stanton already has piled up a whopping 20 K’s.
Stanton’s ugly numbers are even more eye-opening when you compare them to what Baseball Hall of Famer and Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio did/didn’t do in 1941.
Check out this crazy stat from ESPN:
Not good!
In Stanton’s defense, comparing anyone to DiMaggio is a little unfair. The Yankee Clipper is one of the greatest players in Major League Baseball history, after all.
Plus, DiMaggio’s strikeout totals from 1941 actually are somewhat unimpressive, at least in comparison to Cleveland Indians great Joe Sewell.
The Hall of Fame infielder holds the single-season record for fewest strikeouts in a season with four, a feat he achieved both in 1925 and in 1929. Moreover, Sewell struck once every 63 at-bats in his career, giving him the record for the lowest strikeout rate in MLB history. To recap: Stanton has struck out more times in a single game (twice) than Sewell did in two different years.
It probably won’t take long for Stanton to start making hard (like, really, really hard) contact on a regular basis. Until then, Yankees haters can sit back, relax and watch him swing and miss at a historical clip.
