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
Mauer’s double is extra-special
Joe Mauer doubled to lead off the fourth inning and came around to score on a balk to give the Twins a 1–0 lead against the Indians. It was Mauer’s first extra-base hit this season. His 52 at-bats without a double, triple or homer––before that fourth-inning two-bagger––were by far the most into a season he has ever gone without an extra-base hit. His previous longest extra-base hit drought to begin a campaign was 37 at-bats in 2015.
Ervin Santana allowed one hit in his complete-game 6–0 home win over the White Sox. April 15 is the second-earliest calendar date on which a pitcher has thrown a complete-game no-hitter or one-hitter for the Twins franchise. Santana threw 107 pitches. Walter Johnson allowed one hit in a 3–0, season-opening win for the Washington Senators over the Philadelphia Athletics on April 14, 1910. Before that game, William Howard Taft started the tradition of the president throwing out the first pitch of the season (to Johnson, on that day.)
Justin Haley recorded six of his 10 outs via strikeouts, earning his first major-league save in the Twins’ 11–5 win at Detroit. The last pitcher to collect at least six strikeouts in any save was the Royals’ Danny Duffy, also at Detroit on Sep. 20, 2015 (6 SO in 4 IP.) That also happened to be Duffy’s first (and to date, only) save in the majors. Haley is the 21st reliever to strike out six-or-more batters in his first big-league save since the statistic became official in 1969. Only one of the previous 20 went on to save as many as 90 games. That was Tom “Flash” Gordon, who fanned six in two-and-one-third innings for Kansas City at Texas in 1989. Gordon finished his career with 158 saves, although he wouldn’t earn more than one in a season until 1997.
Bill Campbell is the Twins all-time leader in this category getting 15 saves between 1973-1976 by pitching 3 or more innings in a game for the save.
Supernatural start of season for SantanaErvin Santana has been lights out for the Twins to start the season. Santana allowed two hits over six scoreless innings in his win over the White Sox on Sunday, six days after allowing two hits and one run over seven innings in his Opening Day win over the Royals. Santana is the first pitcher in Twins/Senators history to win his first two starts of the season while allowing no more than two hits in either game. The last pitcher on any team to start his season in such a way was Jake Odorizzi, who allowed two hits in each of his first two starts – both wins – for the 2015 Rays. Odorizzi had just one game of that kind in his final 26 starts for Tampa Bay that year.
Phil Hughes stifled the White Sox over six innings to keep the Twins undefeated and atop the AL Central standings. Minnesota, who improved to 4–0 on Friday, finished last season with the worst record in baseball at 59–103. The 2017 Twins are the sixth team in major-league history to open a season with a four-game winning streak after losing 100 or more games in the previous season. The other five squads to do so were the 1899 Cardinals, who started 7–0 after a season with 111 losses, 1906 Braves (4–0 after 103 losses), 1952 Browns (4–0 after 102 losses), 2003 Royals (9–0 after 100 losses), and 2004 Tigers (4–0 after 119 losses).
After adding three more scoreless innings on Friday, the Twins bullpen has been unscored upon in their first 13 innings of the 2017 season. That’s Minnesota’s longest streak to start a season without allowing a run in relief since 1987 – the Twins began that season with 13? scoreless innings from their bullpen. That 1987 season, which culminated in a World Series title for Minnesota, was also the last time the Twins started a season 4–0 before this year.
Jason Castro hit a game-winning double and scored two runs as the Twins completed a three-game sweep of the Royals at Target Field. Minnesota allowed just five runs over the seasons (since 2011), the only other series sweep of at least three games in which the Twins allowed five-or-fewer runs was from April 11 to 13, 2014 at Target Field. Their opponent in that series was also the Royals (allowed five runs, with the same sequence of one run allowed in each in the first two games and three in the third).
Did you know that the Minnesota Twins longest winning streak to start a new season is just six games? Back in 1968 the Twins started on the road beating the Senators (2-0, 5-4) and Yankees (6-0, 4-3) twice, beat the Orioles 6-3 and then came come and beat the Senators again 13-1 before losing game seven to the Senators 7-6.
Twins’ big inning subjugates Royals
Miguel Sano hit a three-run triple and Eduardo Escobar blasted a three-run homer in the seventh inning of the Twins’ 9–1 win over the Royals on Wednesday. It’s the first time since the Twins arrived in Minnesota in 1961 that they had a three-run triple and three-run homer in the same inning.
Sano’s triple was a welcome sight for Twins fans: Minnesota hit .190 with the bases loaded last season, the lowest in the major leagues in any of the past three seasons (2014–16) and the lowest for Minnesota since 1982.
Don’t forget to check out our Today In Twins History page, lots of fun facts there.
Twins walk to a 7-1 Opening Day win at Target Field over the Kansas City Royals
Robbie Grossman, Joe Mauer and Miguel Sano each drew bases loaded walks in the Twins’ six-run seventh inning in their win over the Royals. It was the first time since September 25, 2009 that the Twins drew three bases loaded walks in the same inning. That game was also against the Royals and the Twins players who did it were Joe Mauer, Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer.
The Twins drew only seven bases loaded walks all of last season.
According to MLB, Opening Day rosters feature record 259 players born outside the U.S.
Byron Buxton hit the first pitch of the game for an inside-the-park home run and the Twins went on to defeat the White Sox, 6-3. The only other player who hit an inside-the-park homer to lead off the first inning of a game for his team this season was Buxton’s teammate at the time, Eduardo Nunez, who did it for Minnesota on June 2 against the Rays (in the bottom of the first).
Carlos Rodon racked up 10 strikeouts in leading the White Sox to a 7-3 victory over the Twins at US Cellular Field yesterday. The Minnesota Twins loss was number 103, the most losses the team has suffered since they started play in 1961. Rodon began his outing by striking out the first seven Twins batters to face him. His streak of seven consecutive strikeouts to open the game tied the longest such streak for any American League pitcher to begin a start. The other AL pitcher with a game-opening streak of that length also did so for the White Sox. Joe Cowley struck out the first seven Rangers batters he faced for the White Sox on May 28, 1986, in Arlington. Rodon struck out the side to end his previous outing on Sunday against the Indians. Rodon’s 10 consecutive strikeouts spanning his last two starts is tied for the longest strikeout streak by any pitcher over the last 50 years.