On April 23rd, 1985, Teddy “Yankee Killer” Higuera got his first start as a Major League Rookie.

Teddy Higuera pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers from 1985 to 1994. In 1986, he won 20 games for the Brew Crew when he became the first Brewers’ pitcher to strikeout more than 200 batters.

Before 1998, the Brewers were an American League team and in the same division as the Twins so I got to see Teddy pitch quite often. He is nicknamed the “Yankee Killer” but I always thought of him as a “Twins Killer” also. As a lefty, he was especially difficult on left-handed power-hitters like Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek.

There is something weird about watching a pitcher you really like pitch against your hometown nine. You are torn inevitably between admiration and frustration. I always had that feeling about Roger Clemens for obvious reasons. But for reasons I do not remember, I also had that feeling about Teddy.

The best thing about doing Baseball History here for me is getting a chance to spend time again with a players’ stats on places like Baseball Reference. For Teddy, I spent time on Stathead Baseball looking at his Stats Against All Batters page (I have included the link here).

Here are some of the things that stand out looking at his various stats pages:

• Higuera struck out left-handed, Hall-of-Famer Wade Boggs 10 times
• Right-handed, Hall-of-Famer Kirby Puckett did quite well against Higuera, hitting .353
• Right-handed, Hall-of-Famer Rickey Henderson hit just .241 against Teddy
• In 1986, Teddy threw 15 Complete games & in 1987 14