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
Dozier ties franchise record for extra-base hits in a month
Dozier
Brian Dozier‘s first-inning home run on last night was his 23rd extra-base hit this month, tying a Twins franchise record for extra-base hits in a calendar month. Joe Cronin had 23 extra-base hits in a calendar month twice, when the team was known as the Senators, in July 1932 and June 1933. Cronin hit .368 (46-for-125) in July 1932, but then topped that off by sporting a remarkable .458 batting average (54-for-118) in June 1933.
Dozier has 12 home runs this month, the most for any player in a calendar month this season. Only two other players in franchise history had 12 or more homers in a calendar month: Harmon Killebrew eight times (his high for a month was 15 in May 1959) and Jimmie Hall in August 1963 (13 homers).
Chattanooga Lookouts (AA) outfielder Zach Granite is the Twins minor league player of the week. Granite played seven games for the Lookouts, hitting .357 (10-for-28) with two doubles, six runs scored, two RBI and six stolen bases. Granite has played in 118 games, mostly in center field for the Lookouts this season, hitting .300 (146-for-487) with 16 doubles, eight triples, four home runs 49 RBI, 81 runs scored and 50 stolen bases. He leads the Southern League in batting average and stolen bases and ranks second in runs scored.The 23-year-old was drafted by the Twins in the 14th round of the 2013 First-Year Player Draft out of Seton Hall University where he was a four-year starter.
This past Friday night in Toronto Alex Wimmers became the 29th pitcher used (counting Eduardo Escobar’s one relief appearance) by the Twins this season and 47th player overall. The Twins record for pitchers used in a season was 25 in 2012 (catcher Drew Butera made one relief appearance). Eleven different pitchers have made starts and 23 have made relief appearances. The Twins most players used in a season is 48 in 2014.
The numbers of players used by the Minnesota Twins this year probably won’t equal the number of games the Twins win this season but it will be very close. Wouldn’t that be something if the Twins used more players than the number of games they won?
The Tigers beat the Twins Thursday afternoon extending their winning streak in Minnesota to eight games. That matches the longest current road winning streak for any team against a particular opponent. The Yankees have won eight straight games at Atlanta (2009-present) and the Angels have won eight in a row in Colorado (2001-present).
It’s the longest road winning streak for the Tigers against the Twins since the team moved from Washington to Minnesota in 1961 and the longest against the franchise since they won 11 straight road games against the Senators from 1949 to 1950.
The two paragraphs above come from According to ELIAS. Way too much news like this coming out of Target Field, is there any good news at all? Hope has turned into despair in Twins Territory. Even for a long time Twins fan like myself it is difficult to watch the 2016 Minnesota Twins. I just can’t understand why this team keeps making the same mistakes over and over. Sending players to the minors has not worked, as a matter of fact a case could be made that the Twins keep their players in the minors too long. Players seem to be regress in the Twins system versus get better. Once these players reach Minnesota they seem to fall apart totally after a short stay.
Win a baseball game without your team getting an RBI? It happens, but it doesn’t happen all that often, in the case of our Minnesota Twins it has happened on 12 occasions in the Twins 56 years of play in Minnesota with the last occurrence taking place on May 1, 2015 at Target Field when the Twins shut out the might whities from Chicago 1-0. The Twins had seven hits that day, the most they have ever had in a game of this type. The Twins have beaten the Cleveland Indians three times and the Yankees twice without getting a RBI.
The first time it happened was June 22, 1962 at Met Stadium in the first game of a double-header against the Los Angeles Angels. The Twins had only three hits that day and a walk but they managed to come back from a 2-0 deficit to win the game 3-2. Starter Don Lee for the Angels pitched a complete game in a losing effort, he had pitched for the Twins in 1961 and part of 1962 before being traded to the Angels just a month earlier for pitcher Jim Donohue who also appeared in this game.
The Twins starter that day was Canadian Georges Maranda from Quebec. The right-handed throwing Maranda had an interesting history having been signed by the Boston Braves in 1951. Although Maranda started his career in the Braves system as a 19 year-old he did not make a big league appearance until he debuted as a Rule 5 selection for the San Francisco Giants at the age of 28 on April 26, 1960. He spent the entire season with the Giants in 1960 and was used sparingly, appearing in only 17 games and pitching a total of 50.2 innings and posting a 1-4 record. In 1961 the Giants sent him to AAA Tacoma where he posted a 10-4 record with a 3.56 ERA which was good enough to catch the attention of the Minnesota Twins who made him their Rule 5 pick on November 27, 1961. In Minnesota he again spent the entire season in the big leagues pitching primarily in relief he appeared in 32 games starting just four and the game above was one of those four games. Maranda was credited with the win which turned out to be the only victory he would get wearing a Minnesota uniform and one of the only two games he would win in the majors. The October of 1962 the Twins traded Maranda to the Cleveland Indians as the PTBNL in a deal for pitcher Ruben Gomez.
You have got to love that glove (click on the picture to make it bigger)
Georges Henri Maranda was the first Canadian to wear a Minnesota Twins uniform. Maranda played 13 seasons in professional baseball, but only played for two seasons in the majors. In his final season of pro ball in 1963 he pitched for the Jacksonville Suns in the American Association in 1963. In 1973, the town of Lévis named its baseball park the “Stade Georges Maranda” (Georges Maranda Stadium). He was inducted into the Quebec Baseball Hall of Fame on June 26, 2000. Georges Maranda passed away on July 14, 2000 at the age of 68 after a battle with cancer.
Ft. Myers Miracle (High A) outfielder Tanner English is the Twins minor league player of the week. English played six games for the Miracle, hitting .391 (9-for-23) with two triples, three home runs, four walks and eight runs scored. The 23-year-old English is hitting .233 (20-for-86) with three doubles, three triples, four home runs and eight RBI in 24 games for the Miracle this season. English is about 5’10” and goes about 160 and plays primarily center field and has stolen 51 bases in 59 attempts in his three seasons in the Twins system.
English was originally a 13th round selection in the 2011 MLB Draft out of high school by the Tampa Bay Rays but decided to go to college. English was drafted in the 11th round of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of South Carolina and signed by Minnesota for a reported bonus of $105,000.
For the fourth straight game, the Royals allowed only one run, and it came on a solo homer. No other team in major-league history has had a streak like that, allowing only one run, on a solo homer, in four straight games.
Dozier
Yesterday’s homer came off the bat of Brian Dozier, who has a six-game homer streak against the Royals. (Dozier did have a game during the streak with only a pinch-hit walk, but we’re going by the hitting streak rules here.) The only other player to have a six-game homer streak against the defending World Series winner was Joe Adcock of the Milwaukee Braves. He homered in nine straight games against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956. The Twins longest streak of this kind belongs to Harmon Killebrew who homered against the Kansas City Athletics in 9 straight games in 1961. The longest streak of this kind for an opponent belongs to Seattle Mariners Ken Griffey Jr. who hit six against the Twins in 1999 and Jim Thome who also hit six against the Twins while with the White Sox in 2007.
Minnesota’s Kyle Gibson notched the first complete-game win of his major-league career with a 10-3 victory last night over the Braves in Atlanta. It was the first complete-game road win by a Twins pitcher since May 22, 2012, when P.J. Walters went the distance in a victory over the White Sox in Chicago. Gibson was the first Minnesota pitcher to post a complete-game road win over a National League opponent since June 2010, when Carl Pavano did so twice in a seven-day span, beating the Phillies and the Mets.
Ft. Myers Miracle (High A) right-handed pitcher Fernando Romero is the Twins minor league player of the week. Romero made one start for the Miracle, on Friday versus Charlotte, pitching 7.0 shutout innings with six hits allowed, no walks and 11 strikeouts. The 21-year-old has made nine starts for the Miracle this season, going 3-2, 2.39 ERA (49.0 IP, 13 ER) with eight walks and 48 strikeouts.
He was signed by the Twins out of the Dominican Republic on November 4, 2011 as a 16 year-old for a reported $260,000. Romero has TJ surgery in June 2014 and missed the entire 2015 season. Romero has a career minor league record of 10-7, 2.56 ERA (165.0 IP, 47 ER) with 45 walks and 157 strikeouts.
Not that we have seen any low hit games pitched by Twins pitchers recently but I thought it would still be fun to take a look back over Minnesota Twins history and see what we can find.
The Minnesota Twins have been no-hit on five occasions since the team started play in Minnesota in 1961. Previous to moving to Minnesota the team was known as the Washington Senators and from 1913 through 1960 they were no-hit four times. That is a lot of games (over 10,000) played to be no-hit just nine times.
One-hitters or near no-hitters happen on a more frequent basis, for example the Senators have been one-hit 22 times from 1913-1960 and the Twins have been one-hit a total of 31 times between 1961-2015.
Let’s take a look at some of the games where the Twins had only a single hit.
