The Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers are used to playing long 9 inning games. The Twins have played 11 nine inning games of 239 minutes or longer and the Tigers have been the opponent on five occasions and to make matters worse the Twins have won just one of those games and they had to score 20 runs to win that one.
Sunday afternoon’s 9-6 loss to the Tigers now stands as the Twins longest 9 inning game, fortunately the weather was great at Target Field. Paul Molitor and the Twins burned through seven pitchers, certainly not the kind of game anyone wants on getaway day when you are heading out to face the best team in the National League, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
| Rk | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | IP | H | R | Pit | BF | # | Attendance | GmLen ? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2017-07-23 | MIN | DET | L 6-9 | 9.0 | 16 | 9 | 192 | 47 | 7 | 28,373 | 259 |
| 2 | 2016-07-23 | MIN | BOS | W 11-9 | 9.0 | 15 | 9 | 196 | 48 | 7 | 37,600 | 251 |
| 3 | 2014-08-24 | MIN | DET | L 4-13 | 9.0 | 18 | 13 | 196 | 53 | 5 | 23,983 | 250 |
| 4 | 1987-07-25 | MIN | TOR | W 13-9 | 9.0 | 16 | 9 | 47 | 5 | 36,395 | 245 | |
| 5 | 2014-08-03 | MIN | CHW | W 16-3 | 9.0 | 8 | 3 | 134 | 37 | 2 | 23,471 | 241 |
| 6 | 2017-04-22 | MIN | DET | L 4-5 | 9.0 | 11 | 5 | 189 | 47 | 7 | 25,719 | 240 |
| 7 | 1993-05-26 | MIN | OAK | W 12-11 | 9.0 | 14 | 11 | 205 | 48 | 6 | 18,276 | 240 |
| 8 | 1992-06-04 | MIN | TEX | W 15-12 | 9.0 | 16 | 12 | 171 | 46 | 6 | 31,848 | 240 |
| 9 | 2000-10-01 | MIN | DET | L 11-12 | 8.0 | 19 | 12 | 178 | 46 | 7 | 28,293 | 239 |
| 10 | 2014-08-22 | MIN | DET | W 20-6 | 9.0 | 15 | 6 | 172 | 44 | 6 | 29,394 | 239 |
| 11 | 2008-07-09 | MIN | BOS | L 5-18 | 8.0 | 23 | 18 | 159 | 49 | 5 | 37,470 | 239 |
Very long game indeed.
By the way, I predicted that Zack Granite was the real deal before the season.
At this point he is clearly a better baseball player than Byron Buxton, however, as we all know, Byron is a much better athlete, and has more power, and as an obviously higher potential. However, I would not sell Granite short as he gets a really good jump on the ball which Byron sometimes doesn’t and he hardly ever strikes out.