TWINS TRIVIA is hopefully a fun and informative site that will help you to better enjoy the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful history. “History never looks like history when you are living through it” – John Gardner, former Secretary of Health
August 31, 1993 – The Minnesota Twins finally win the longest game in their history when Pedro Munoz hits a walk-off home run to lead off the bottom of the 22nd inning to beat Jason Grimsley and the Cleveland Indians 5-4 in 22 innings after playing ball for 6 hours and 17 minutes at the Metrodome. Twins rookie RHP Brett Merriman picks up his first big league win in his seventh big league game. Sadly for Merriman, that win turned out to be the only game he would win in the big leagues. According to some reports, there were only about 1,500 fans in the stands when Munoz crossed the plate at 1:22 AM on 9/1. I was home and stayed up to watch the entire game on TV. Don’t forget to check out the pitch counts in the box score provided below.
Sano is “quickest” to a dozen homers for the Twins
Miguel Sano‘s 12th career home run gave the Twins a 7-0 lead against Houston yesterday and they held on for a 7-5 victory. Sano, who has played only 49 games in the majors, is the first player ever to hit as many as a dozen homers in fewer than 50 games for the Senators/Twins. Sano broke the franchise record which was set by Chili Davis in 1991, when he hit 12 homers over his first 53 games for the Twins after they signed him as a free agent that January. Source:ELIAS
Rochester (AAA) right-handed pitcher Jose Berrios is the Twins minor league Player of the Week. Berrios who is just 21 years old started for the Red Wings on Wednesday at Syracuse, pitching 7.0 shutout innings with three hits allowed, one walk and 12 strikeouts, earning the win as he recorded consecutive double-digit strikeout totals. Berrios has combined to go 12-5, 2.95 ERA (155.1 IP, 51 ER) with 37 walks and 165 strikeouts in 25 starts between Chattanooga (AA) and Rochester. Baseball America ranked him Berrios the 19th best mid-season prospect in baseball in July.
Berrios who is in his fourth year in the Twins organization has never had a losing season and 2013 was the only year that Berrios spent the entire summer with just one ball club. Twins fans in Minnesota can’t wait to see Berrios in a Twins uniform, maybe as early as this September but unfortunately Berrios is approaching his Twins imposed innings limit and we may have to wait until 2016.
Eduardo Nunez homered and drove in a run with a groundout, the Twins scored another run when Torii Hunter was hit by a bases-loaded pitch, and five pitchers combined to blank the Astros in a 3-0 victory. Hunter gets hit by a pitch with the bases full every seven years, the two previous times that it happened were in 2001 with the Twins and 2008 with the Angels.
Getting as many as three runs hasn’t been easy against the Houston pitching staff; in fact, the Twins were the first team to do it in the Astros’ last 10 games, although A.J. Hinch‘s squad has now lost three of those 10 games (the other two losses came by a 1-0 score). Source: ELIAS
Miguel Sano, who went 2-for-4 with one RBI in the Twins’ loss to the Rays yesterday has 38 RBI in 47 major-league games. Since the franchise moved to Minnesota in 1961, only one other player had that many runs batted in over his first 50 games with the team (not necessarily his first 50 major-league games). That was Kennys Vargas last season; Vargas also began his career with the Twins and drove in 38 runs over the first 50 games of his MLB career. Source: ELIAS
Dereck Rodriguez, 23, was named the Appalachian League’s Pitcher of the Year after going 5-2 with a 2.65 ERA in 10 starts for Elizabethton. Rodriguez was selected by the Minnesota Twins as an outfielder in the sixth round (208 overall) of the 2011 First Year Player Draft out of Pace High School in Miami Gardens, Florida. Rodriguez, a right-hander played for Class A Cedar Rapids and Class A Advanced Fort Myers as an outfielder from 2011-2013. The 6-foot-1 starter was drafted by the Twins as an outfielder but made the career change to pitching after the 2013 season. . Rodriguez has 45 strikeouts and just 10 walks in 54 1/3 innings with the E-Twins this year. Dereck is the son of Major League All-Star catcher Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguezwhospent 21 years in the Major Leagues, won 13 Gold Gloves and was a 14-time All-Star.
E-Twins outfielder LaMonte Wade and reliever Kuo Hua Lo joined Rodrigez on the 2015 Appalachian League All-Star team.
Eduardo Escobar had his first multiple-homer game in the major leagues in the Twins’ win over the Rays last night and over his last seven games he’s knocked seven extra-base hits and scored eight runs. No other major-league shortstop has averaged an extra-base hit and a run scored per game over a seven-game span this season.
Marty Cordova in spring training getting ready for the 1996 season.
Miguel Sano hit a three-run home run in the first inning of the Twins’ 11-7 win at Tampa Bay. Sano has now hit 12 home runs in 45 major-league games. That’s the fewest games any player in franchise history has needed to reach a dozen big-league homers. The old record was 58 by Marty Cordova in 1995.
The Minnesota Twins hosted a 59th anniversary celebration on July 31 and August 1 for the 1965 American League champions. On July 31st the organization put on a “Championship Breakfast” that was attended by about 250 Twins fans and 11 players from the 1965 championship team that won a Twins record 102 games. Twins TV broadcaster Dick Bremer served as the master of ceremonies.
I was able to attend the breakfast which was held in the Metropolitan Club at Target Field and had a great time meeting other Twins fans and chatting briefly with some of the players. The cost of the breakfast was $75 for season ticket holders and $100 if you were not a Twins season ticket holder with the proceeds going to the Twins Community Fund.
John Sevcik and Bill Pleis were unable to attend due to family health issues. Jimmie Hall also was invited but was not in attendance. Why he was not here is unclear, I saw some where that he was not able to change his schedule in time to attend and the other reason that has floated around for a long time is that Hall likes to stay close to home and that he is not a huge fan of the Twins organization due to some conflicts that have arisen in the past over medical claims. I have no idea why Dwight Siebler or Pete Cimino were not in attendance other than Siebler only appeared in seven games and Cimino only appeared in one game.As nored earlier, coach Hal Naragon was in attendance.
Manager Sam Mele who is 93 was not able to attend due to health concerns but he did make a short video that was played for the crowd. Coaches Billy Martin, Johnny Sain, and Jim Lemon have also passed on. Coach Hal Naragon as mentioned earlier was in attendance.
I took a few pictures at the championship breakfast that I will share with you here. Just click on the first thumbnail image to get started.
The Twins were kind enough to provide me with a group picture from the Saturday celebration. Clicking on the picture will enlarge it slightly.
BACK ROW L – R: Jim Merritt, Jerry Kindall, Dick Stigman, Rich Reese, Mel Nelson, Andy Kosco, Frank Kostro, Garry Roggenburk, Jerry Fosnow, Bernie Allen, Hal Naragon FRONT ROW L – R: Joe Nossek, Sandy Valdespino, Rich Rollins, Jim Perry, Camilo Pascual, Al Worthington, Frank Quilici, Jim Kaat, Jim “Mudcat” Grant, Tony Oliva
Twins sweep their season series versus the Orioles
The Twins scored an unearned run in the 12th inning that stood up as the game-winner at Camden Yards after Trevor Plouffe knotted the game with a ninth-inning RBI single off Zach Britton. The Orioles had won their previous 77 home games in which they led in the ninth inning or later.
Minnesota completed a sweep of its seven-game season series against Baltimore and has won its last eight games versus the Orioles dating back to last season. That is the longest current winning streak by one American League team against another.
August 31, 1993 – The Minnesota Twins finally win the longest game in their history when Pedro Munoz hits a walk-off home run to lead off the bottom of the 22nd inning to beat Jason Grimsley and the Cleveland Indians 5-4 in 22 innings after playing ball for 6 hours and 17 minutes at the Metrodome. Twins rookie RHP Brett Merriman picks up his first big league win in his seventh big league game. Sadly for Merriman, that win turned out to be the only game he would win in the big leagues. According to some reports, there were only about 1,500 fans in the stands when Munoz crossed the plate at 1:22 AM on 9/1. I was home and stayed up to watch the entire game on TV. Don’t forget to check out the pitch counts in the box score provided below.
