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
Kennys Vargas‘s five-RBI game in Saturday’s opener was the fourth by a Twins rookie over the last two seasons, joining Oswaldo Arcia (2013), Chris Colabello (2013) and Danny Santana (June 7). No other team has more than two five-RBI games by a rookie since the start of last season.
The Twins beat up on the Detroit Tigers 20-6 last night at Target Field in front of 29,394 fans that had to watch 3 hours and 59 minutes of baseball if they wanted to see the games final pitch. The Twins are the first AL team this season to score 20 runs in a game and this is the most runs ever scored by the Twins in a game at Target Field.
This is the 13th time in franchise history and the eighth time in Twins team history that the team has scored 20 or more runs in a game. The Detroit Tigers have been the unlucky victims of the Twins/Senators 20 or more runs parade on five occasions, four times by the Twins and once by the Washington Senators.
The Twins previous high for runs scored in a game at Target field occurred on July 16, 2012 when they out-scored the Baltimore Orioles 19-7. The Twins have had 20 runs scored against them just three times and always on the road. The Twins lost to the Kansas City A’s 20-2 on April 25, 1961, they lost 23-6 to the Kansas City Royals on April 6, 1974 and they lost a 20-6 game to the Texas Rangers on July 25, 2011.
| Rk | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | PA | AB | R | H | HR | BB | LOB | Attendance | GmLen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1996-04-24 | MIN | DET | W 24-11 | 60 | 46 | 24 | 19 | 3 | 12 | 9 | 12,189 | 223 |
| 2 | 2002-06-04 | MIN | CLE | W 23-2 | 57 | 50 | 23 | 25 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 14,029 | 194 |
| 3 | 1994-06-04 | MIN | DET | W 21-7 | 57 | 49 | 21 | 24 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 23,780 | 194 |
| 4 | 1994-05-20 | MIN | BOS | W 21-2 | 54 | 44 | 21 | 22 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 20,766 | 188 |
| 5 | 1929-08-05 | WSH | DET | W 21-5 | 51 | 41 | 21 | 21 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 132 | |
| 6 | 2014-08-22 | MIN | DET | W 20-6 | 55 | 46 | 20 | 20 | 4 | 9 | 11 | 29,394 | 239 |
| 7 | 2009-05-21 | MIN | CHW | W 20-1 | 54 | 46 | 20 | 20 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 23,048 | 178 |
| 8 | 2007-07-06 (1) | MIN | CHW | W 20-14 | 57 | 47 | 20 | 21 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 31,543 | 222 |
| 9 | 1980-04-27 | MIN | OAK | W 20-11 | 52 | 41 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 19,859 | 197 |
| 10 | 1943-08-01 (2) | WSH | SLB | W 20-6 | 56 | 41 | 20 | 19 | 0 | 12 | 12 | 15,579 | 136 |
| 11 | 1925-08-22 | WSH | DET | W 20-5 | 55 | 44 | 20 | 19 | 3 | 10 | 8 | 162 | |
| 12 | 1923-08-24 | WSH | CLE | W 20-8 | 59 | 42 | 20 | 22 | 0 | 14 | 12 | 150 | |
| 13 | 1915-09-29 (2) | WSH | PHA | W 20-5 | 52 | 43 | 20 | 23 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 110 |
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Here is what ELIAS had to say about the game: Eduardo Escobar led the Twins’ 20-hit attack, going 5-for-6 from the eighth slot in the lineup, in their 20-6 victory over the Tigers. He was the first major-league player to collect five hits, including a home run, in a game from either the eighth or ninth slot in the lineup since Detroit’s Carlos Pena generated six hits, including a pair of homers, at Kansas City back in 2004.
Escobar’s night began with a second-inning homer off Robbie Ray, and he followed with a single off Blaine Hardy, a triple off Jim Johnson, a single off Joba Chamberlain and another single off pitcher-for-a-day infielder Andrew Romine. Escobar became the second Twins player this month to get hits off five different pitchers in the same game – Danny Santana did it against the White Sox on August 3 – something no other big-leaguer has done this season.
And just to complete the story, we note that Escobar also made a pair of errors at shortstop on Friday night. The last major-leaguer with at least five hits and at least two errors in the same game was Kansas City’s Angel Berroa, who did it in a game at Cleveland in September 2003.
For the Twins, their 20-run, 20-hit performance marked just the eighth time in modern major-league history that a team had posted those exact numbers – and three of those eight games have been produced by the Twins. Minnesota went 20/20 against the Athletics in 1980 and against the White Sox in 2009.
Phil Hughes struck out six without walking a batter over seven innings, earning a victory in the Twins’ 4-1 win over the Royals at Target Field last night. It was the 13th start this season in which Hughes didn’t issue a base on balls, the highest such total in the majors. The only other pitchers in double figures are Hisashi Iwakuma (11) and Tim Hudson (10).
The Twins record for most starts in a season with no walks is held by Carlos Silva who had 18 games with no walks in 2005. That same season, Brad Radke had 17 starts with no walks. That same year Johan Santana and Joe Mays had seven games with walks and Kyle Lohse had six games with no bases on balls. Twins opponents had to hit their way on base back then. In 2005 Twins starters had a total of 58 games where they did not walk a batter and is an all time best. In 2014 Twins starters have 30 games todate with no walks. The Twins worst season for starters not allowing a walk was back in 1976 when they had only six games with zero walks.
Josh Willingham knocked in three runs in his first game against his former team in the Royals’ win over the Twins last night. Willingham is the fifth former Twins player to drive in at least three runs in his first game against his former team and that game was played in Minnesota. The others to do that were Russ Nixon in 1968, Don Baylor in 1988, Darrin Jackson in 1997 and Carlos Gomez in 2010.
Joe Mauer‘s first-inning single was the 1,500th hit of his career and his sixth-inning homer gave the Twins a lead they never relinquished in a 3-1 win over the Astros yesterday. Mauer’s .320 career batting is the highest for any player at time of his 1,500th hit since Albert Pujols reached that milestone in 2008 with a .334 lifetime average. Aside from Pujols, the only player who entered the major leagues in the past 15 years and had a higher average than Mauer’s when he collected his 1500th hit was Ichiro Suzuki (.332).
Mauer become the sixth Twins player to reach the 1,500 hit pinnacle, can you name the other five? Pretty simple I would think for most Twins fans. Here is a table that shows how they compare.
| Rk | Player | H | From | To | Age | G | AB | R | HR | RBI | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kirby Puckett | 2304 | 1984 | 1995 | 24-35 | 1783 | 7244 | 1071 | 207 | 1085 | 965 | .318 | .360 | .837 |
| 2 | Rod Carew | 2085 | 1967 | 1978 | 21-32 | 1635 | 6235 | 950 | 74 | 733 | 716 | .334 | .393 | .841 |
| 3 | Tony Oliva | 1917 | 1962 | 1976 | 23-37 | 1676 | 6301 | 870 | 220 | 947 | 645 | .304 | .353 | .830 |
| 4 | Kent Hrbek | 1749 | 1981 | 1994 | 21-34 | 1747 | 6192 | 903 | 293 | 1086 | 798 | .282 | .367 | .848 |
| 5 | Harmon Killebrew | 1713 | 1961 | 1974 | 25-38 | 1939 | 6593 | 1047 | 475 | 1325 | 1314 | .260 | .383 | .901 |
| 6 | Joe Mauer | 1501 | 2004 | 2014 | 21-31 | 1257 | 4693 | 727 | 108 | 664 | 628 | .320 | .401 | .863 |
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Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew obviously had more hits than you see above but I am only comparing the time they actually played in Minnesota. For all the criticism that Mauer has received the last few years for his lack of power, only Harmon has a higher OPS.
Trevor May walked seven batters without recording a strikeout in his major-league debut, a 9-4 Twins loss at Oakland last night. No pitcher had issued that many bases on balls without a strikeout in his first big-league game since the White Sox Ken Kravec (7 walks) on September 4, 1975 versus the Royals. And the only other pitcher in Twins franchise history with such an inauspicious debut was the Washington Senators’ Joe Krakauskas, against the Philadelphia Athletics on September 9, 1937 (7 BB).
No major-league pitcher had issued 7+ walks without a strikeout in any game since the Blue Jays’ Ricky Romero (8 BB at Detroit) on August 21, 2012. And the last Twins pitcher to put up a line like this was Willie Banks (7 BB at Boston) on July 25, 1992.
Seth Smith led off the top of the 10th inning with a home run to give the Padres a 5-4 win over the Twins at Target Field. Smith entered the game with a .658 slugging percentage this season when leading off an inning, the sixth-highest such average in the major leagues (minimum: 75 leadoff at-bats).
The Twins squandered a 4-3 lead in the ninth inning, before Smith’s decisive hit. Minnesota had won the last 82 home games in which it led in the ninth inning or later, which was the longest current streak of that kind in the major leagues entering the day.
As if the Twins’ nine-run eighth inning wasn’t enough, Chris Parmelee, Oswaldo Arcia and Eric Fryer rubbed salt in the wound with consecutive ninth-inning home runs off Andre Rienzo to increase the margin of victory in Minnesota’s 16-3 laugher against the White Sox. The Twins are the third team to hit back-to-back-to-back homers in a major-league game this season, and the two other instances occurred on consecutive days in April. Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Raul Ibanez did it for the Angels on April 13 (all first-inning shots off the Mets’ Bartolo Colon), as did Evan Gattis, Dan Uggla and Andrelton Simmons for the Braves on April 14 (eighth inning homers, all off Philadelphia’s B.J. Rosenberg).
Trevor Plouffe was 4-for-5 with two doubles in the Twins’ win at U.S. Cellular Field. Plouffe is 16-for-35 (.457) against the White Sox this season. The only major-leaguer with at least 35 at-bats versus one team this season and a higher average than that is Freddie Freeman, who is 20-for-41 (.488) against the Nationals.
Kurt Suzuki produced three hits, including a two-run double that opened the scoring in the Twins’ 4-3 win over the Indians. Suzuki now has nine games with at least three hits this season, the highest total by any catcher in the majors this season (only including hits when a player was in his team’s lineup as a catcher, of course). Suzuki entered the day tied with Salvador Perez of the Royals and Jonathan Lucroy of the Brewers, each of whom has eight (Lucroy also has had a pair of three-hit games while in the lineup at first base). This could become the first season since Kurt Suzuki reached the major leagues that he produces more games of three-or-more hits than does his more famous namesake, Ichiro Suzuki. Through Monday night’s games, Kurt possesses a 9-to-3 lead in that category.
The question is how long the Twins best trade chip will remain in a Minnesota uniform.