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
Four Twins relief pitchers (Anthony Swarzak, Brian Duensing, Casey Fien, Glen Perkins)combined for six shutout innings and 10 strikeouts in Minnesota’s win over Houston. It’s the first time since 1971 that the Twins bullpen combined for that many scoreless innings and strikeouts in a nine-inning game. The last time they had such a game was on September 16, 1971 at Milwaukee. The Twins relief pitchers in that game were Steve Luebber, Hal Haydel and Tom Hall.
Francisco Liriano
Francisco Liriano improved to 12-4 with a 2.02 earned-run average in 16 starts for the Pirates this season. Liriano is only the third Pirates pitcher since 1912 – the first year the National League began compiling earned runs – to win 12 or more games with an ERA under 2.25 in his first 16 starts of a season. Rip Sewell did it in 1943 (12-2, 2.22 ERA) and Dock Ellis in 1971 (12-3, 2.24).
Brian Dozier knocked in the tying run in the ninth inning and then ended the game with an RBI single in the bottom of the 13th in the Twins’ 4-3 win over the Astros on Friday night. Dozier entered the contest with 70 career RBIs, but only one had either tied the game or put his team ahead in the seventh inning or later (game-tying home run on May 6, 2013).
Dozier has not exactly been “Mr. Clutch” to this point in his young career but we can’t look a gift horse in the mouth can we? Not when your team is 46-60 and 15.5 games out of the division lead.
The Twins defeated the Angels, 4-3, as Joe Blanton took another loss. Blanton, who allowed all four Minnesota runs and nine hits in just 3 2/3 innings, fell to 2-13 (.154), the second-lowest winning percentage among the 113 big-leaguers with at least 10 decisions this season. Shaun Marcum recently took a 1-10 (.091) record with him to the Mets disabled list. Blanton gave up a fourth-inning home run to Clete Thomas on Monday night, the 10th straight game in which Blanton has surrendered a home run. Last season, while pitching for the Phillies, Blanton allowed a home run in each of 11 consecutive games. He is only the second pitcher in major-league history to have a double-digit streak of games allowing home runs in each of two consecutive seasons; he joins Hall-of-Famer Bert Blyleven, who endured home-runs-allowed streaks of 11 games in 1986 and of 14 games in 1987, while with the Twins.
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JJ Hardy
J.J. Hardy‘s 17th home run of the season capped a four-run sixth inning that propelled the Orioles to a 9-2 victory at Kansas City. The American League’s starting All-Star shortstop has hit 69 home runs, all while playing as a shortstop, in his three seasons with Baltimore, by far the most by any big-league shortstop over that span. (Troy Tulowitzki stands at distant second, with 55.) Hardy’s homers have maintained the Orioles’ power-hitting tradition at that position. Since 1982 (Cal Ripken Jr.’s first season as the team’s regular shortstop), Orioles shortstops have hit a total of 622 home runs, by far the most for any major-league team’s shortstops; second place belongs to the Brewers, with 460 homers from their shortstops – 75 of which were hit by Hardy from 2005 to 2009!
Seriously? We traded Hardy and Brendan Harris to Baltimore for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson? Goes down in the annals as one of the Twins worst trades in history. Aargh!
Brian Dozier hit a home run and knocked in four runs from the first spot in the batting order for the Twins yesterday against Toronto. Dozier is the first Twins player to homer and drive in at least four runs from the top spot in the batting order since Denard Span did it on July 26, 2009 at Anaheim.
Mark Buehrle pitched seven scoreless innings to lead the Blue Jays to a 4-0 win over the Twins on Friday night. The win was Buehrle’s 28th career victory against Minnesota, the most wins any pitcher has recorded against the Twins since they began playing in Minnesota in 1961; and the most any active pitcher has against any franchise.
Kyle Gibson defeated the Royals and struck out five batters in his first game in the major leagues yesterday. Only two other Twins pitchers started and won their major-league debut while striking out five or more batters since the team moved in Minnesota in 1961: Bert Blyleven in 1970 at RFK Stadium against the Senators and Darrell Jackson in 1978 at Metropolitan Stadium against the Tigers; they each had seven strikeouts.
Gibson becomes the first Twins first-round draft pick to win his major league debut, nine others have tried and failed. Gibson joins Anthony Swarzak (5/23/09), Dave Gassner (4/16/05), Eric Milton (4/5/98), Scott Erickson (6/25/90), Darrell Jackson (6/16/78), Roger Erickson (4/6/78), Paul Thormodsgard (4/10/77), Pete Redfern (5/15/76) and Bert Blyleven (6/5/70) as Twins starters that have earned a win in their MLB debut.
Samuel Deduno recorded his fourth win in seven starts for the Twins this season by holding the Royals to one run in seven innings yesterday. Deduno has recorded twice as many wins as any other Minnesota pitcher since May 24, when he made his 2013 major-league debut after being recalled from the minors. Deduno has pitched at least six innings and allowed no more than two runs in each of his four wins this season. Deduno has beaten the Royals three times this season.
Michael Cuddyer set a record for the longest single-season hitting streak in Rockies’ history – 24 games – with his second-inning single against the Mets’ Jeremy Hefner yesterday. Before that single, Cuddyer had been tied for the Colorado franchise record with Dante Bichette, who hit safely in 23 consecutive games in 1995. For the moment, the Rockies remain one of the two current major-league teams that have never had a player register a single-season hitting streak of 26 or more games. The other team without a hitting streak of that length is Tampa Bay, whose team record is 19 games by Jason Bartlett in 2009.
Twins starter P.J. Walters walked five batters in the first inning last night at Progressive Field against the Cleveland Indians. Walters lasted just 0.2 innings as he also hit a batter and allowed a hit. The Twins ended up losing to the Indians by a score of 8-7. The last time a Twins pitcher walked five batters in an inning was when Paul Abbott walked five on August 10, 1991 at Seattle (bottom of the seventh). The last time the Twins had a starter last just 0.2 innings and walk five batters was June 10, 1975 when Joe Decker did it against the Indians, in fact, that was the only other time it has happened in Twins history. Additionally, Walters also joins Sid Hudson (5/17/1940) as the only starter in franchise history to allow at least five walks and six earned runs in an outing of less than 1.0 inning. Source was Twins Game Notes. Box score.
PJ Walters
Here is what Elias had to say about the situation: The Indians drew five first-inning walks against Minnesota’s P.J. Walters, tying the highest total by any team this season. The Athletics had five first-inning walks against the Astros on April 15. The Indians hadn’t had such a first inning since the penultimate game of the 1990 season and the Twins hadn’t either since June 10, 1975, also against Cleveland.
Brian Dozier, Oswaldo Arcia, Clete Thomas, and Eduardo Escobar provided unlikely power in the Twins’ 8-4 win over the White Sox at Target Field. It was the first time in team history that Minnesota players homered from the first, seventh, eighth, and ninth slots in the batting order in the same game.
There was one other such game this season. On April 30, the Indians homered from the 1, 7, 8, and 9 slots (Michael Brantley, Lonnie Chisenhall, Ryan Raburn, and Drew Stubbs). But prior to that, it hadn’t happened in the majors since 2005.
The average of 14.98 strikeouts per major-league game during May was the 5th-highest average in a full month in major-league history. (We’re not including fragmentary baseball months, usually March or October, in which fewer than 60 games were played.) The record was set just last September, when there was an average of 15.47 strikeouts per game.
That brings us to the larger point: Over the 138-year history of Major League Baseball, the top nine months on that list – that is, the list of months with the highest average of strikeouts per game – are the last nine months. You read that correctly. Not nine-of-the-last-12, nor nine-of-the-last-10, but nine-of-the-last-nine. There were 14.91 strikeouts in September 2011, 14.63 in April 2012, followed by 14.93 last May, 15.01 last June, 15.07 in July, 14.68 in August, the record 15.47 in September, 15.29 in April and now 14.98 in May. Those are the nine highest monthly strikeout averages in baseball history. Attention must be paid.
