Twins Switch Hitters

In baseball, a switch hitter is a player who bats both right-handed and left-handed, usually right-handed against left-handed pitchers and left-handed against right-handed pitchers, although there are some exceptions. Is it beneficial to be a switch hitter? Left-handed batters get a better jump out of the batter’s box to first base. This means the left-handed batter will get more infield hits. Hitting the ball to the first base side of the field has many built-in advantages for his team (such as hitting behind the runner), so he becomes a more valuable hitter.

If you look at position players only, then about 13% are switch hitters, 54% right-handed and 33% left-handed hitters. I believe that at last count there have been 20 switch hitters elected into the Hall of Fame. Many consider Mickey Mantle the greatest switch hitter of all time while others might tell you that it was Pete Rose but that is a whole different story. The switch hitter in the HOF with the most hits is Eddie Murray and the only HOF switch hitting player with more home runs than Murray (504) is Mickey Mantle with 536. So a case can certainly be made for Eddie Murray being the best switch hitter in MLB history.

Read more: Twins Switch Hitters

The Minnesota Twins have had their fair share of switch hitters over the years. Who was their best switch hitter? That would depend on what you are looking for in a hitter but you have to start with Roy Smalley. Up until this past season Roy Smalley led Twins switch hitters with 110 career home runs in a Twins uniform but this past season in 2023 Jorge Polanco took over the team lead in switch hitter home runs with 112. Lets take a look at the Twins switch hitters from 1961 to 2023 at https://stathead.com/tiny/hYPg4. The list shows us the Twins have had 77 switch hitters (both position players and pitchers) over the years but only 68 of them had a plate appearance and 66 of them had at least one hit while 44 of them slugged at least one home run.

Cy Young winner Jim Perry was the Twins best switch hitting pitcher hitting 5 home runs and getting 46 RBI with 117 hits and hitting .191 in 613 AB’s over 380 games in his Twins career. Pitcher Pedro Ramos was no slouch with the stick for Minnesota as he hit three home runs in his one season (1961) pitching for Minnesota in just 93 AB’s. Ramos was the Minnesota Twins very first switch hitter to appear in a game and get a hit with two RBI off future Hall of Famer Whitey Ford when he batted on Opening Day in 1961 at Yankee Stadium. He also became the first Twins switch hitter to hit a home run when he hit one out on May 12 at Met Stadium against the Los Angeles Angels pitcher Eli Grba in a 5-4 Twins victory.

Jim Perry
Pedro Ramos

I have written some previous articles about Twins switch hitters that you can check out at Twins switch-hitters and Twins switch-hitters from 1961-2015

These guys beat up the Twins over the years

With the Minnesota Twins having 57 MLB seasons in the rear view mirror, the Houston Astros winning the World Series in 7 games, the temperatures in the mid 40’s and with no snow on the ground it is a good time to look back on and revisit the hitters that have found Twins pitching to their liking over the years. 

Today we are going to take a look at Twins opponents that have 200 or more hits against the Twins, there are 23 players who fit this criteria. 200 hits is a lot of hits. Six of the 23 hit from the left side, 13 were right-handed hitters and just four (Vizquel, Martinez, Wilson and Murray) of them were switch-hitters. Just missing out on this list were Frank Thomas with 194 hits, Al Kaline with 192 and Sal Bando with 190 hits.

200 or more hits against the Minnesota Twins

Carl Yastrzemski

Results
Rk Player #Matching AB H
?
HR RBI SO BA OPS Tm
1 Carl Yastrzemski 297 1094 321 43 158 121 .293 .855 BOS
2 George Brett 228 869 275 23 128 74 .316 .869 KCR
3 Paul Konerko 257 926 265 50 136 139 .286 .845 CHW
4 Cal Ripken 207 788 242 26 119 87 .307 .849 BAL
5 Magglio Ordonez 195 739 240 37 145 80 .325 .906 CHW,DET
6 Wade Boggs 179 687 234 6 84 50 .341 .869 BOS,NYY,TBD
7 Bert Campaneris 232 913 229 7 54 115 .251 .633 KCA,OAK,TEX,CAL,NYY
8 Omar Vizquel 212 783 228 5 68 79 .291 .732 SEA,CLE,SFG,TEX,CHW,TOR
9 Victor Martinez 205 764 226 29 121 90 .296 .823 CLE,BOS,DET
10 Reggie Jackson 252 902 225 51 142 243 .249 .818 KCA,OAK,BAL,NYY,CAL
11 Brooks Robinson 230 861 223 20 115 91 .259 .711 BAL
12 Amos Otis 195 740 223 16 100 102 .301 .818 KCR
13 Jim Thome 196 695 218 61 156 221 .314 1.049 CLE,CHW,PHI,BAL
14 Paul Molitor 176 716 217 16 93 76 .303 .825 MIL,TOR
15 Willie Wilson 185 693 216 3 64 113 .312 .752 KCR,OAK
16 Rickey Henderson 198 721 215 23 85 90 .298 .869 OAK,NYY,TOR,ANA,SEA,BOS
17 Robin Yount 208 794 211 18 93 92 .266 .715 MIL
18 Harold Baines 213 716 209 32 127 101 .292 .851 CHW,TEX,OAK,BAL
19 Ivan Rodriguez 178 678 208 29 94 104 .307 .835 TEX,DET,NYY,HOU
20 Luis Aparicio 195 774 205 8 51 60 .265 .649 BAL,CHW,BOS
21 Miguel Cabrera 175 653 205 41 139 109 .314 .960 FLA,DET
22 Frank White 214 704 202 13 73 70 .287 .751 KCR
23 Eddie Murray 168 658 201 44 133 94 .305 .922 BAL,CLE,ANA
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 10/29/2017.

One oddity that I noticed when looking over this data was that only two players got their 200 or more hits from one spot in the batting order. Ricky Henderson had 214 out of his 215 hits against Minnesota hitting lead-off while Carl Yastrzemski had 228 of his 321 hits out of the three-hole.

WOW! Look at the Hall of Famer’s on this list plus some of the others will be in shortly. Anyone on this list surprise you? How about players that you thought would be on the list but are not?

 

The 1975 Minnesota Twins and a seven year old boy

Today we have a guest post by Treavor Lenz who is celebrating the 40th anniversary of his first Twins game which he saw at Met Stadium. I enjoy the stories and thoughts that readers of this site share either through comments, messages or e-mails. If I can, I try to share them with other Twins fans. In this case Treavor talks about many different Twins historical events that he has had the pleasure to witness in person over the last 40 years. That is one of the cool things about baseball, it seems like certain games or events stay with you for a life time.

The young Twins fans of today haven’t had the opportunity to witness some of the wonderful events that have taken place over the years. What is cooler than reading about a Twins historical event from a person that actually was there when it took place? Thanks for taking the time to share your memories with us Treavor!

 

Hi Twins fans!

This August 16th marks a famous day in Twins history…. Well, for me, at least.  It’s the 40th anniversary of my first Twins game I ever attended at the Old Met.  I had just turned 7 and my Dad and I joined a Knothole Gang bus tour out of Eagle Lake, MN (I grew up in Waseca, MN.).  The sights and sounds of the ballpark were awesome for me and the game had a few historical significance’s, too. The Indians were managed by Frank Robinson, a future HOFer and the first African-American to lead an MLB team.  As noted in the Twins Trivia “This Day In Twins History” page, the Twins set an MLB record as all 9 players in the starting lineup had at least 2 hits, 20 total on the day.  Phil Roof’s home run landed just a section away from where we were sitting!  Tony Oliva and Rod Carew were definite favorites.  It’s too bad… I had missed out on seeing Harmon Killebrew by one season.

I was hooked; I wanted to see the Twins play each year and on or around my birthday, for sure.  I made it back to the Old Met, Metrodome and Target Field at least once each summer until 2011, 37 straight years!  After college at Iowa State, getting married and starting a family, my career took me to Wisconsin in 1999, so getting back for a game became wasn’t as easy as just picking up one evening and going to the Twin Cities from southern MN, but my desire spurred by that 7 year old’s memories kept it going for a while.

I wanted to share a few favorite memories of Twins games I attended with you today.

Other “This Day In Twins History” games I saw were:

  • Dave Goltz’s 180 (!) pitch, 11 inning, complete game 2-1 win over the A’s on July 25, 1977. I only realized a few years ago researching games I’d been to how high his pitch count was.
  • The only double-header in Metrodome history on August 1, 1983 (my 15th birthday) vs. the Angels, caused by the April 14, 1983 snowstorm that deflated the Metrodome roof. On that April day when they announced when the double-header would be, I simply told my folks, “We’re going!”  Two games and a return trip of Rod CarewReggie Jackson had two doubles in the first game.  The Twins split, with Rick Lysander winning the second game with an amazing complete game, 11-hit shutout.  Darrell Brown went 4-4, too.
  • Dave Kingman’s pop up that got stuck in the Metrodome roof on May 4, 1984, that, after much deliberation, the umpires ruled a ground rule double.
  • Steve Carlton’s last MLB win (329) vs. the A’s in an important 1987 AL West division game. He went 8 and 2/3’s innings.  Also, Don Baylor was an underrated pickup for the 1987 Champs!
  • Casey Blake was on fire on July 5, 2003! The Indians’ slugger was 5-5, with two doubles and two HRs, adding 7 RBIs in Cleveland’s 13-2 win.  My brother “became an Indians fan” in the seventh, “since they were the only ones hitting that day.”

Other memories include:

  • In 1976 vs. the Yankees, my Dad almost broke his hand on a Mickey Rivers’ foul liner that just kept climbing into the second deck, 3rd base side.
  • A 1977 tilt, when Lyman Bostock had a go-ahead, 8th inning homer, the White Sox and Twins seventh of the day, to win it 7-6 and the whole 1977 season when Carew, Bostock, Hisle and Ford were key hitters in a fun season. (Reminds me a little of the current 2015 Twins!)
  • A great stab by Rob Wilfong going towards first, starting a 4-6-3 DP, of a line one hop smash by Jim Rice. My section was right in front of it!  You’ve got to give Rice credit; he hustled and almost beat it out.  The Twins beat a star-studded Red Sox team 5-2 on July 25, 1978 that featured Fred Lynn, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, George “Boomer” Scott and Jim Rice.
  • Waiting out a 2 hour rain delay to see Detroit bet the Twins 8-3 in 1979. Willie Norwood would always have a good game at the plate when I went.
  • Jerry Koosman pitched a 10 inning complete game 2-1 win over the 2 time defending World Champ Yankees the day before my 12th birthday, July 31, 1980. John Castino doubled in Ken Landreaux all the way from first off of future HOF closer Goose Gossage.  Even Reggie’s strikeouts were majestic!
  • Seeing Harvey Kuenn’s Wallbangers with Paul Molitor, Robin Yount, Ben Oglivie, and Gorman Thomas in the last game I saw at Met Stadium in September 1981.  They did in the overmatched Twins 16-5.  Mark Funderburk hit a towering sacrifice fly in his Twins’ debut at-bat.
  • My first game in the Metrodome in 1982. First (full) year phenom Kent Hrbek was intentionally walked with no one on and 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th as Texas preserved a 3-2 win.
  • The arrival of a dynamo named Kirby Puckett, who swung at anything and hit line drives and ran everything down in center. KIRRR-BY PUCKETT!!!!—never got tired of the PA announcer’s call!
  • A fan a few rows in front of me made a great bare handed catch of a foul liner off of the bat of Orioles’ first baseman Eddie Murray. If it had skipped through, I was ready!
  • A fan a few rows behind me by the cement aisle steps dropped a foul pop from Randy Bush. As I got my hand on it after judging the one hop, my brother informs me that another fan pushed me squarely in the back trying to reach over me for it, too.  The ball skittered away from both of us.  I never got any closer to a ball than that!
  • Oakland CF Dave Henderson losing the ball in the white Metrodome ceiling and LF Rickey Henderson’s mad dash (to no avail) to try to catch it behind him!
  • Seeing 12 games in 1987, including Game 2 of the 1987 World Series! My Dad’s brother, Uncle Fred got 2 sets of 2 tickets to it.  My brother, Aaron, and I sat in one and Dad and Fred in the other.  Gary Gaetti’s HR (inside the foul pole right in front of us), Randy Bush’s RBI double, Bert Blyleven going 7 innings and the loudest atmosphere I’d ever been in stand out.  A Tom Brunansky bottom of the 9th HR vs. the Brewers for a 2-1 win was key that year.  KC Royals Danny Tartabull’s 9th inning 3 run HR off of Jeff Reardon was not.  Oddly, the Twins were 5 wins and 6 losses in the 11 regular season games I attended—the year they had such a great home record!
  • Boston’s Roger Clemens outdueled Scott Erickson 1-0 in about 1990. Clemens finished with a complete game 2 hitter and Scotty went about 7 and 2/3’s.  Leadoff batter Billy Hatcher cueballed a spinning double past Kent Hrbek down the first base line, Wade Boggs singled him in and that was it for the scoring after the top of the first!
  • Seattle’s Ken Griffey, Jr and Ken Griffey, Sr playing together. Junior homered, naturally…
  • The M & M boys (Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau) hit line drives all over the place.
  • The last game I saw at the Metrodome was in July 2009 vs. Detroit. Each time Detroit would score so would the Twins until their one run in the 16th inning could not match the three the Tigers had scored.  Longest game I’ve ever attended!
  • The two games at Target Field in 2010 and 2011, both against the Rays. Jim Thome’s shot off the wall only resulted in an RBI single (a few feet short of a home run) as they lost in ’10, but Michael Cuddyer’s bloop RBI single was the winning margin in ’11.

I’ve probably left off a few deserving entries, but what I enjoyed the most about going to a Twins game was attending WITH MY FAMILY!  My Dad Ken, Mom Kathy, sister Kelli, brother Aaron, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and later, my wife Becky, my kids Trey, Kylie, and the twins (of course!) Mikayla and Mackenzie, her folks Arlin and Carol, brother Brian, and sister Deb’s family are the people with whom I enjoyed Twins games!

Left to right: Me (Treavor), Mackenzie, Trey, Mikayla, Kylie, and my wife, Becky
Left to right: Me (Treavor), Mackenzie, Trey, Mikayla, Kylie, and my wife, Becky

I hope you enjoyed a look at the last 40 years of Twins baseball as I saw it!  Go Twins!!!

Treavor Lenz

As I was prepping this post by tagging all the players that Treavor mentioned it dawned on me that some of these players had slipped into the archives of my own memory banks as I age but seeing their name in print again brought back many memories, some funny, some exciting, some good, some bad, some historic, and some that are just plain sad. That’s a good thing, damn I love baseball. Thanks again Treavor.

According to Elias and a little extra

Kyle Gibson
Kyle Gibson

The biggest pitch Kyle Gibson threw in his seven scoreless innings on Friday night was the one that induced a Miguel Cabrera double-play grounder with the bases loaded in the fifth inning. Cabrera entered the game with a career .417 batting average with the bases loaded which was the second-highest such average for any player who debuted in the expansion era (since 1961) and has at least 100 at-bats with the bases full, behind Tony Gwynn (.444). Twins beat the Tigers 2-0 at Comerica Park. Miguel Cabrera enters today’s game with impressive career numbers vs. Minnesota. Cabrera is batting .314 (139×443) with 31 doubles, 28 home runs and 108 RBI in 118 career games against the Minnesota Twins. He ranks third among all active players with 28 home runs and 108 RBI, fourth with 78 runs scored, sixth with 31 doubles and eighth with 139 hits against the club. Cabrera has hit safely in each of his last six games and 11 of his last 14 contests vs. Minnesota.

Rich Rollins - Twins 3B from 1961 - 1968
Rich Rollins – Twins 3B from 1961 – 1968

When I modified the number of at bats need to qualify from 1oo to 50 then I get an interesting cast of characters that knew how to hit in the clutch but maybe did not have careers as long as Gwynn and Cabrera. Note that former Twins 3B Rich Rollins is very high on the list and that outfielder Jason Kubel was a qualifier too. Phil Nevin was a Twins player too but since he only had 8 hits in a Twins uniform we didn’t see his clutch hitting skills. This list is from 1961-current.

Rk Player G Gtot BA BAtot PA AB R H HR RBI BB SO OBP SLG OPS
1 Pat Tabler 105 1202 .489 .282 109 88 80 43 2 108 11 9 .505 .693 1.198
2 Russ Snyder 70 1365 .483 .271 67 60 77 29 2 68 5 5 .507 .717 1.224
3 Felix Jose 53 747 .481 .280 56 52 39 25 2 60 1 9 .464 .788 1.253
4 Jeff Keppinger 67 818 .456 .282 69 57 55 26 0 65 4 4 .435 .614 1.049
5 Tony Gwynn 153 2440 .444 .338 158 133 211 59 3 143 9 8 .433 .594 1.027
6 Rich Rollins 75 1002 .443 .269 75 70 66 31 4 80 4 4 .467 .714 1.181
7 Ian Desmond 60 682 .434 .270 60 53 41 23 2 51 0 7 .383 .585 .968
8 Rennie Stennett 81 1237 .423 .274 80 71 65 30 1 71 4 3 .425 .521 .946
9 Mike Blowers 89 761 .420 .257 92 81 48 34 7 92 5 20 .424 .827 1.251
10 Rusty Greer 97 1027 .418 .305 98 79 98 33 6 97 10 14 .449 .684 1.133
11 Miguel Cabrera 164 1723 .414 .321 165 140 170 58 4 150 10 28 .418 .614 1.032
12 Joe Orsulak 93 1494 .410 .273 96 78 90 32 2 82 9 7 .448 .564 1.012
13 Mark Grace 163 2245 .402 .303 168 127 173 51 3 156 21 8 .429 .575 1.003
14 Carlos Guillen 148 1305 .402 .285 154 127 122 51 3 140 11 16 .403 .622 1.025
15 Mike Hargrove 109 1666 .402 .290 111 82 136 33 1 101 20 14 .486 .549 1.035
16 Jim Gentile 83 936 .400 .260 86 70 73 28 6 92 11 23 .453 .729 1.182
17 Eddie Murray 298 3026 .399 .287 302 238 285 95 19 299 22 34 .387 .739 1.127
18 Kevin Seitzer 118 1439 .398 .295 116 93 118 37 4 110 17 8 .466 .624 1.089
19 Phil Nevin 125 1217 .397 .270 135 116 106 46 7 120 9 28 .422 .621 1.043
20 Ross Gload 58 795 .396 .281 62 53 29 21 1 50 4 8 .403 .547 .950
21 Mike LaValliere 71 879 .393 .268 72 61 34 24 1 62 5 6 .403 .557 .960
22 Troy Tulowitzki 97 934 .393 .299 102 89 82 35 2 81 4 17 .392 .562 .954
23 Jason Kubel 105 1036 .392 .262 115 97 71 38 8 110 7 22 .391 .732 1.123
24 Richie Zisk 109 1453 .392 .287 110 97 97 38 3 99 6 22 .400 .598 .998
25 Bill Madlock 128 1806 .390 .305 128 105 154 41 3 116 7 7 .383 .600 .983
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/14/2014.

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This Day in History – April 21

 

Ray Moore
Ray Moore

April 21, 1961 – The Minnesota Twins played their inaugural home game at Metropolitan stadium but came away with a loss against Joe McClain and the Washington Senators. The Senators score 2 in the top of the ninth off reliever Ray Moore and pin a 5-3 defeat on the Twins. 24,606 fans attended the Twins first home game and team ownership was disappointed that the game was not a sell-out with about 6,000 seats sitting empty. Temperature at game time was 63 degrees. There were no line-up cards available so Twins manager Cookie Lavagetto and Senators manager Mickey Vernon had to scribble their line-ups on pieces of scrap paper.

April 21, 1967 – Tony Oliva of Minnesota lost a home run due to a base running blunder. Playing in Detroit in the third inning, Cesar Tovar was the runner at first base. Oliva hit the ball out of the park off Denny McLain, but then passed Tovar between first and second. He was credited with a single and one RBI for scoring Tovar. In the ninth inning Oliva hit another home run and this one counted.

John ButcherApril 21, 1985 – The Twins had won the first two games of the 1985 season under manager Billy Gardner but then proceeded to lose nine in a row before John Butcher took the mound for the Twins against the Oakland A’s at Oakland-Alameda County Stadium on this day and shut out the A’s on just 3 hits facing only 28 batters and threw just 81 pitches. The game lasted just 1 hour and 55 minutes and Kirby Puckett went 3 for 5 and knocked in both runs.

April 21, 1994Eddie Murray set a major league record with his 11th switch-hit home run (home run from each side of the plate) game as the Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins 10-6 at the Metrodome.

April 21, 2004 – The Twins sell pitcher Brad Thomas to the Boston Red Sox.

 

Joe Nathan
Joe Nathan

April 21, 2007 – The Twins had started the 2007 season with 19 consecutive stolen bases before Torii Hunter gets caught in the 8th inning of their 17th game of the season. However; the Twins beat the Royals at Kauffman Stadium 7-5 and Joe Nathan performs a rarity during his 6th save of the season when he retires the Royals 1-2-3 in the ninth getting Esteban German, Tony Pena, and David DeJesus all looking at 3rd strikes. Getting the side out 1-2-3 for a save, all on called third strikes is rare feat and was last done in 2003 by Jose Valverde.

April 21, 2012 – With his leadoff single in the ninth inning, Josh Willingham extended his season-opening hitting streak to 15 games. He improved upon the record he set Friday night, the longest hitting streak by a player to start his Twins career. And he tied Kirby Puckett’s 1994 Twins record for the longest season-opening hitting streak. His streaks ended as he went hitless on April 22nd.

Twins switch-hitters

In baseball, a switch-hitter is a batter that bats either from the right side or the left side depending on if the pitcher is right or left-handed. Most curveballs break away from batters hitting from the same side as the opposing pitcher making such pitches often harder to hit than those from the other side. History tells us that most right-handed batters hit better against lefty pitchers and left-handed batters hit better against right-handers. This so-called platoon benefit is why managers use pinch hitters and LOOGY’s and why some players want to become switch-hitters.

Switch-hitting at its best

Switch-hitters have been around for ever it seems and yet according to sources that I have researched, only about 6% of baseball batters have been switch-hitters. You have to wonder if switch-hitting is such an advantage, why haven’t more of baseball best hitters been switch-hitters? The best career batting average for a switch-hitter is .316 by Frankie Frisch and he currently ranks 71st all-time. Some of the best switch-hitters in our era have been  Chipper Jones at .306 and Pete Rose at .303. Detroit Tigers DH Victor Martinez has a career average of .302 making him the highest currently active switch-hitter. Switch-hitters have been around for a long time and there have been some pretty good ones over the years, in addition to the players I just mentioned, you have to add players like Mickey Mantle, Eddie Murray, Roberto Alomar, Bernie Williams, George Davis, Lance Berkman, Tim Raines and Chili Davis to the list of switch-hitting greats.

Switch-hitting and the rules

A question often asked is can a batter switch for right to left or left to right during an at bat. The only rule that I can find that seemingly applies is 6.06(b) which states that “A batter is out for illegal action when he steps from one batter’s box to the other while the pitcher is in position ready to pitch.” Based on that, it appears you can switch from one batters box to the other as often as you want as long as you do it before the pitcher gets in his pitching position.

Twins switch-hitting history

The Twins currently have four switch-hitters on their 25 man playing roster, C Ryan Doumit, SS Pedro Florimon, OF Aaron Hicks, and utility man Eduardo Escobar.

Roy Smalley III
Roy Smalley III

In the Twins 53 years of existence the team has had 62 players that were switch-hitters but not all of them actually batted and we will touch more on that later. The Twins very first switch-hitter was actually a pitcher, Pedro Ramos. Ramos pitched and batted (1 for 4 with 2 RBI) in the Twins very first game when Ramos and the Twins shut out the New York Yankees 6-0 on April 11, 1961 at Yankee Stadium. The first Twins switch-hitting position player to appear in a game was SS Marty Martinez when he had an at bat against the Yankees at Met Stadium on May 30, 1962 in game 2 of a doubleheader. Martinez actually appeared in 3 earlier games as a Twins but was used strictly as a pinch-runner by manager Sam Mele. It wasn’t until 1976 however; that the Twins actually had a regular position player switch-hitting and that year they had two, rookie catcher Butch Wynegar and SS Roy Smalley. The Twins are playing their 53rd season and there has only been one year, 1973 that they have not had a switch-hitter step into the batters box wearing a Twins uniform. On the other hand, they had nine switch-hitters (Cristian Guzman was the only starter) at one time or another on their 1999 team that finished 63-97.

Twins switch-hitting pitchers

Looking at the Twins 62 switch-hitters, eleven of them were pitchers and claimed to be switch-hitters but only Pedro Ramos, Jim PerryDan Serafini, JC Romero, and Joe Mays actually set foot in the batters box. The other six, Stan Perzanowski, Darrell Jackson, Pete Filson, Jason Ryan, Pat Neshek, and Eric Hacker were switch-hitters only on the back of their baseball cards because they never batted in a Twins game. Jim Perry actually hit five home runs as a Twin.

Home runs from each side of the plate club

The Twins switch-hitter with the most home runs is Roy Smalley and he hit 163 career home runs and 110 of them were when he was a Minnesota Twin. The “home runs from each side of the plate” club is relatively exclusive but three of the members were Twins. Roy Smalley accomplished that rare feat twice, once against the Boston Red Sox at the Metrodome on  May 30, 1986 and once earlier in his career as a New York Yankee in 1982. Chili Davis became the second Twin to join the club when he did it against the Royals on October 2, 1992.  Ryan Doumit became the third Twin to do so when too joined the exclusive fraternity against the Royals on July 22, 2012. Chili Davis hit a home run from each side of the plate 11 times in his illustrious 19 year career. Just for comparisons sake, Mickey Mantle did it on 10 occasions.

One oddity that seems to stand out to me is how few of the switch-hitters employed by the Twins over the years actually threw left-handed. If you exclude the 11 switch-hitting pitchers from the list you are left with 51 switch-hitters and only one of the 51 threw left-handed, the other fifty were right-handed. Kind of strange. The lone left-handed position player was John Moses. But keep in mind that John Moses an outfielder by trade, actually pitched in 3 games for the Twins and it gets even stranger.

Twins best switch-hitters

So let’s take a look at the Twins top switch-hitters, there is no good way to rank them so I will list here all the Twins switch-hitters that have 1,000 or more plate appearances in a Twins uniform. The chart also shows positions played, games played, home runs and batting average. All the numbers on this chart are their Twins career numbers. Many of these players played for other teams but those numbers are not included here, I am only interested in their numbers as Minnesota Twins for this story.

Name Positions PA Games HR AVG
1 Roy Smalley 6,5,3 4676 1148 110 .262
2 Cristian Guzman 6 3538 841 39 .266
3 Butch Wynegar 2,5 3188 794 37 .254
4 Nick Punto 5,4,6,8,3 2707 747 12 .248
5 Gene Larkin 3.9.5.4 2670 758 32 .266
6 Denny Hocking 4,6,8,5,3 2455 876 25 .252
7 Al Newman 6,4,5,8 1876 618 0 .231
8 Alexi Casilla 4,6,5,8 1764 515 11 .250
9 Chili Davis DH,9,3 1163 291 41 .282
10 Luis Castillo 4 1036 227 3 .299
11 Matt Walbeck 2 1008 275 8 .230

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