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
Joe Mauer had four hits and knocked in three runs for the Twins on Monday night. It’s the ninth time in his career that Mauer had at least four hits and three RBIs in a game as a catcher. No other player has more than seven such games as a catcher since Mauer made his major-league debut in 2004.
Joe Mauer had four hits and three RBIs for the second straight game, and the Twins beat the Angels for the second straight game, this time by the score of 8-6. He became the first major-leaguer with at least four hits and at least three RBIs in two straight games since the Twins’ Danny Valencia did it in July 2010. Mauer had only one game of four-or-more hits over the past two seasons combined.
Last night marked Joe Mauer’s 21st career game with four-plus hits, which ranks fourth on the Twins all-time list, behind Kirby Puckett (47), Rod Carew (42) and Tony Oliva (28)…it was also his 356th career multi-hit game, which ranks sixth on the Twins all-time list, behind Puckett (702), Carew (617), Oliva (562), Kent Hrbek (469) and Harmon Killebrew (410).
The last two games with four hits each marked the second time in Mauer’s career with consecutive four-hit games, the previous time being June 26-27, 2006 vs. Los Angeles-NL.
I did not attend the Twins season opener at Target Field yesterday but I did watch it from the comfort of my home where it was nice and warm and the game came in crystal clear on Fox Sports North in HD via Comcast. The folks at the ballpark had to endure a windy 35 degrees with a wind chill in the 20’s at game time (3:10 PM) as they watched the Detroit Tigers beat the Twins 4-2. I thought I would take a few minutes and share my observations of the game.
Vance Worley
Twins starter Vance Worley was out there in short sleeves while many players wore ski masks and winter hats to keep warm. Worley gave up 8 hits and a walk while striking out three in 6 innings. I have not seen Worley pitch very much prior to this game but I was impressed with his effort today. Yes, he gave up more hits than I would like but what I took away from this game was that Worley is fighter. He had a lot of guys on base early on but he kept pitching and kept his team in the game, which is more that most Twins starters have done in the last year or so. Take Francisco Liriano for example, as soon as he had a runner or two on base you could count on him folding like a $2 umbrella. The man could not pitch with runners on base. The weather was miserable and the Tigers are a top-notch team and it was the season opener with a lot of hype, I though Worley acquitted himself very well.
I felt bad for Aaron Hicks, a rookie that skipped AAA and in his major league debut he gets to face Jason Verlander on a 35 degree day at home. A tough task and those three strikeouts will hopefully just be a small speed bump in what promises to be a long and succesful career for Hicks. Hang in there Aaron.
The Twins lost but they had their chances multiple times but they let the Tigers off the hook by being over-anxious. The Tigers bullpen stinks and the Twins were just not patient enough and didn’t wait for good pitches. When you leave 12 on base you don’t deserve to win and the Twins didn’t. The Twins took 6 walks and they could have had several more in key situations but they swung at “balls” to often.
Although it is a game in the loss column we have to remember it is only one game, I am anxious to see the Twins next game.
Elias says: Justin Verlander improved his record to 7-0 with a 1.22 earned-run average over his last seven starts against the Twins. The last pitcher to win seven consecutive starts against the Twins was David Wells, who won nine in a row against them from 1996 to 2000.
New York Yankee pitcher CC Sabathia struck out Joe Mauer three times in yesterdays 8-2 loss at Target Field on a total of nine pitches. There have been only three other games this season in which a pitcher stuck out a batter three times, on nine total pitches: Hisashi Iwakuma against Brett Lawrie on July 30; James Shields versus Wilson Betemit on July 26; and Yu Darvish facing Bobby Wilson on June 2. Prior to Wednesday’s game, Mauer had struck out three times against the same pitcher in one game only twice, and Sabathia was one of them, on July 29, 2007. The other was Ryan Dempster earlier this season (June 10).
Josh Willingham’s tie breaking home run in the fifth inning yesterday was hit his 35th of the year, his first season with the Twins. That’s the most home runs any player has hit in his first season with the Twins franchise. The previous “record” for such a thing was the 33 home runs Jimmie Hall hit for the Twins in 1963, his rookie season.
Trevor Plouffe hit his 21st home run of the season for the Twins to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning and tie the score at 3-3 in their game against the Royals, a game that Minnesota went on to win in the 10th inning. It was only the second time this year that Plouffe drove in a run in the seventh inning or later that tied the score or gave the Twins a lead. His only other late-inning, lead-changing RBI this season came when he hit a tiebreaking solo homer in the 11th inning at Milwaukee on May 19. Source: Elias
The Twins scored seven runs in the second inning and added 10 more runs in the fifth inning in their 18-9 win over the Chicago White Sox at US Cellular Field yesterday. It’s the third time in franchise history that the Twins scored seven or more runs in an inning twice in the same game. They also did it on September 7, 1901 against Milwaukee when the franchise was in Washington and on June 12, 2003 at the Metrodome against the Colorado Rockies. It’s only the second time in White Sox history that they allowed seven or more runs in an inning twice in a game. The other occurrence was 109 years ago – May 30, 1903 against Cleveland.
Scott Diamond
Scott Diamond was the beneficiary of the Twins’ outburst Tuesday night. Minnesota has scored 139 runs in Diamond’s 22 starts this season, an average of 6.3 runs per game. That’s the highest run support for any major-league pitcher with at least 10 starts this season. The Twins average 4.1 runs in all other games. Source: Elias
Jamey Carroll homered for the Twins in their 4-2 loss at Chicago. Carroll, who has only 13 home runs in 3,388 career at-bats in the majors, snapped his streak of 1,348 consecutive at-bats without a home run (since August 9, 2009). Carroll entered the night with the longest current homer-less streak in the majors; that distinction is now owned by Kansas City’s Chris Getz (currently on the disabled list with 918 at-bats since his last four-bagger). No player had ended a homer-less streak as long as Carroll’s since Rafael Belliard went 1,869 at-bats between round-trippers from May 5, 1987 to September 26, 1997. Source: Elias
As far as the Twins homer-less streaks are concerned, Al Newman is first with 1,647 homer-less at bats and Ben Revere is next with 884 home-less at bats through yesterday’s game and his streak is still active. Carroll is now third on the Twins longest homer-less streak with 412 at bats.
The Twins defeated the Royals, 3-1 and 8-7, in yesterday’s doubleheader, marking the second time this season that Minnesota has taken two in one day from Kansas City. On June 30, the Twins swept two from the Royals, 7-2 and 5-1, in Minneapolis. This marked the first time that the Twins have swept a specific opponent in two games in one day twice in the same season since they gave that treatment to the Athletics way back in 1978. The Twins were on the wrong side of such a thing as recently as last year, which they twice dropped a pair of games on the same day to the Indians. By the way, in all, the Twins played twice in a day four times last season-and lost all eight games! Glen Perkins saved both games for the Twins on Saturday, becoming the first Twins pitcher to earn two saves in one day since Rick Lysander saved a pair of games at Boston on Aug. 18, 1984. Source: Elias
After a loss to the Athletics on Wednesday, Liam Hendriks is 0-8 in 13 major-league starts. No other player who came up with the Twins franchise lost his first eight decisions as a starter. The previous most is seven, by Paul Abbott and Terry Felton. (Felton finished his major-league career 0-16, as a starter and reliever, the most losses without a win in major-league history.)
Twins rookie Samuel Deduno improved his record to 4-0 in seven starts this season this with a victory over the Tigers at Target Field last night. Deduno earned the win despite issuing five walks, bringing his season total to 30 bases on balls. Deduno is the first major-league pitcher to go undefeated in a span of seven starts in one season while walking 30 or more batters over that stretch since Tampa Bay’s Victor Zambrano in 2004. The last pitcher to do that for the Washington/Minnesota franchise was the Senators’ Ed Linke in 1935. Source: Elias
