Big news for the thread:

1) Miguel Sano is back in Major League Baseball, having missed over 2.5 months after injuring himself during a celebration. Oh, but it gets better. What was Sano celebrating? A game winning fiasco, on which Sano himself ran into what looked like a sure out on the base paths, only for the Detroit Tigers to fling the ball into the outfield while botching a rundown on one of the slowest players in the league (I was there; I have seen better defense in T ball).

View that nonsense here.

2) But the bigger news is this: in admiring Miguel Sano's statistics, it became apparent that he achieved his feat of reaching 1000 Ks in 661 games with significantly more at bats and plate appearances than King Donkey, by virtue of batting in the middle of the Twins' order for several years.

By my unofficial count, Sano recorded his 1000th strikeout in at bat 2405, and plate appearance 2744. Both appear to be all time records.

Donkey is currently at 987 Ks with 2243 at bats, and 2670 plate appearances. Assuming he can get another 50 or so at bats, he will surely eclipse Sano's mark. He has 74 plate appearances to work with, which also looks very, very likely based on his performance this year (2.64 PA/strikeout).

You heard it here first: Donkey will make history this year.

Now we just have to wait and see which jersey he will be wearing when he does it.

Pay attention, Boone. This is what a good manager looks like.

Twins skipper Rocco Baldelli benches All Star first baseman Luis Arraez, who is batting .341 to lead the major leagues, to make room for Miguel Sano, who has a .379. That would be outstanding as a batting average, not too shabby as an on base percentage, and not very good as a slugging percentage. (It is actually his OPS). But he does have 21 Ks in only 54 ABs, a Joey-esque performance.

The fans want strikeouts, and strikeouts is what they shall have.

So Stanton goes on the IL and Boone thinks he doesn't need the Donkey? What a moron

JOEY PINCH HITTING AS THE TYING RUN WITH 2 OUTS IN THE EIGHTH!

How many strikeouts to go in a Yankee uniform? Hold on to these moments, folks!

K swinging!!! Treasure the memories!!

Joey, not about to let this punk show him up in his own house, also strikes out looking.

3 at bats, 3 Ks for Joey, who is striking out like a man possessed!

Seems unlikely that he will get a fourth at bat tonight, unless some weird things happen in extra innings.

Perhaps some of the magic of the old park will transfer over to "New Yankee Stadium" and Joey will get a chance to leave the fans with a Golden Sombrero as a lasting memory of his greatness.

Joey has 991 career strikeouts, with 9 to go to join the 1000 K club!

Miguel Sano, man, I can't even.

3 at bats last night, 3 Ks swinging. His slash lines for the year: .083/.211/.133. My old man used to say that anyone with two arms, legs and eyes should be able to bat .100; apparently not.

Sano's strikeout percentage is a healthy .417, not quite up to Donkey's standard of .455 but still outstanding.

Matt Olsen passed him a few days ago. They are still 3 strong

redline248 said:

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Matt Olsen passed him a few days ago. They are still 3 strong

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Huzzah! Great to see a front office that appreciates the importance of depth at the strikeout position!

We could be entering the last 24-48 hours of the Manhattan Project 2- Joey Gallo's incredible time in New York City.

A recap of that experience so far:

140 games played
501 plate appearances
421 at-bats
65 runs scored
67 hits
11 doubles
1 triple
25 home runs
46 RBI
2 steals
77 walks
194 strikeouts
.159 batting average
.461 strikeout average

Joey's up to 991 strikeouts for his career. I'm making something special for #1,000. He deserves it.

Also thought it's high time we start tracking Joey's Hall of Fame chances. The two things that automatically get you in the Hall of Fame are 3,000 hits and/or 500 home runs. Here's an initial look at where King Donkey stands.

500 home runs: Joey's already got 170, so he's a third of the way there. It's taken him 708 games to get to 170, so he'll get to 500 home runs around his 2,082nd game. Assuming he gets away from the toxicity of Aaron Boone to a team that lets him play 162 times a year, he'll get there in 8 more years when he's 36.

3,000 hits: He's already got ALMOST one sixth of the amount right now! On that torrid pace, he'll get to 3,000 hits in his 4,699th game. That's coming up in 24-1/2 seasons - so mark your calendar for 2046!

100 Sacrifice flies: I think we can all agree that Joey's second career sacrifice fly last year was a huge burden off his shoulders and has set him up for some great things, as evidenced by his record-setting performance so far in 2022. If you look at the all-time SF leader list, you notice that you have some really great players headlining it, most of the guys who have hit triple digits are in the Hall or will be one day. Eddie Murray, Ripken, Yount, Aaron, Pujols, etc.
Joey has gotten off to a slow start in this department, but he loves to hit fly balls that go a long way, but not all the way out. So he's got 2 through 708 games. Do the math to get to 100, which would be tied for 33rd all-time, and we're talking about him needing to play in just 35,400 games for his career. Now granted, no one has ever played in more than 3,562 games in a career, so Joey's going to have to really push through some of the wear and tear associated with a longer career. Probably going to need some of that cryo-freeze technology they used on Ted Williams and/or Walt Disney to get him there, because at his current pace, Joey won't get to 100 career sac flys until early in the 2236 season.

I feel hope rising in my heart that there are less than 24 hours to go before Joey is rescued from the toxicity of Aaron Boone.

I'm so angry about how Boone has mistreated King Donkey that I'm considering doing something truly antisocial to vent my outrage, like reproducing or retransmitting game footage without the express written consent of Major League Baseball.