March 4, 2010 – The Minnesota Twins preach putting the bat on the ball and getting it in play because you never know what can happen next, but the Twins have had a number of players over the years that have taken that long walk to the bench after flailing away and missing. Strangely enough, when you look at the franchise top fifty strike-out leaders from a hitting perspective, 46 out of 50 are Twins players and only 4 are Washington Senators and both of them, Jim Lemon and Harmon Killebrew played for the Twins. You would think with the old-time pitchers accumulating so many strike-outs that you would see more Washington Senators on this list. The top Twins strikeout team was the 1997 team (68-94) with 1,121 KO’s and the top Senators strike-out team was the 1960 team (73-81) with 883 KO’s. The top man on the list is Bobby Darwin who led the AL in strikeouts between 1972-1974. Here are the seasonal top ten strike-out performances by Twins/Senators hitters:
| Rank | Name | Strike outs | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bobby Darwin | 145 | 1972 |
| 2 (tie) | Carlos Gomez | 142 | 2008 |
| 2 (tie) | Harmon Killebrew | 142 | 1962 |
| 4 | Jim Lemon | 138 | 1956 |
| 5 | Bobby Darwin | 137 | 1973 |
| 6 | Harmon Killebrew | 135 | 1964 |
| 7 (tie) | Rich Becker | 130 | 1997 |
| 7 (tie) | Michael Cuddyer | 130 | 2006 |
| 9 | Jacques Jones | 129 | 2002 |
| 10 | Lary Hisle | 128 | 1973 |