Sano and Santana combine for first-of-a-kind Twins win
The Twins’ two best players this season, Miguel Sano and Ervin Santana, were the stars of a 1-0 victory for Paul Molitor’s squad in Cleveland last night. Sano’s first-inning home run, his 10th homer of the season, provided the game’s only run while Santana went seven innings to lower his ERA to 1.50. That’s the lowest ERA for a Minnesota pitcher through his first eight starts of a season since Scott Erickson began the 1991 season at 1.44 through eight starts. Erickson went on to win 20 games that season and the Twins went on to win the World Series.
How often do you see a 1-0 game in which the only run comes on a first-inning homer? Well, there were no such games in the major leagues all of last season and only one in 2015 (Albert Pujols supplied the home run against the A’s on June 13 of that year, and C.J. Wilson earned the victory). Moreover, it was the first 1-0 victory featuring a first-inning home run in the history of the franchise, dating back to its beginnings in Washington in 1901.