Category: According to Elias

According to ELIAS

7-8-9 hitters contribute to Tigers’ victory

The Tigers received great production from the bottom of their batting order, with James McCann, Alex Presley and Jose Iglesias each producing three hits and scoring twice in the team’s 9-5 victory over the Twins on Sunday. It marked the first time in nearly six years that a team’s starters in the bottom three slots in the batting order each registered at least three hits and two runs scored in the same game, since Texas did it against Minnesota on July 25, 2011. The Rangers’ 7-8-9 hitters in that game were Mike Napoli, Mitch Moreland and Endy Chavez.

The Tigers had not had their bottom three hitters produce in that fashion in over 30 years, since Pat Sheridan (three hits, two runs), Chet Lemon (three hits, three runs) and Tom Brookens (three hits, two runs) each had three or more hits and multiple runs scored in a win over the Indians on June 3, 1987.

It just goes to show that Twins pitchers can make any opposing hitter better.

According to ELIAS

Twins hold on to beat Tigers

Kyle Gibson took a 6-0 lead over the Tigers into the eighth inning when Detroit exploded for five runs, but All-Star reliever Brandon Kintzler and left fielder Eddie Rosario closed the door in the ninth inning and the Twins won, 6-5 last night. Kintzler pitched an inning and one-third to earn his 27th save of the season, but only the third in which he induced four-or-more outs. The first out of the ninth inning came when Rosario threw out Jose Iglesias trying to stretch his down-the-line leadoff single; it was the first assist for Rosario since May 11.

According to ELIAS – Bartolo Colon

Twins add sexy

 

Bartolo Colon

Bartolo Colon made his Twins debut on Tuesday night with a start against the Yankees. Minnesota is the 10th major-league team Colon has started for, becoming the fifth pitcher in major-league history to start for 10 different teams. Mike Morgan holds the all-time record; he started at least one game for 12 different teams and of course one of them was the Minnesota Twins.

This is sort of impossible to believe, but there have been eight pitchers older than the age that Bartolo Colon currently is to appear in a Major League Baseball game in the past 50 years. They are:

Hoyt Wilhelm (49, 1972)
Jamie Moyer (49, 2012)
Phil Niekro (48, 1987)
Nolan Ryan (46, 1993)
Jesse Orosco (46, 2003)
Tommy John (46, 1989)
Charlie Hough (46, 1995)
Randy Johnson (45, 2009)

According to ELIAS – Eduardo Escobar

Twins get one by the Yankees at home

 

Eduardo Escobar

Eduardo Escobar’s go-ahead single in the eighth inning put the Twins up for good, as they defeated the Yankees, 4-2, at Target Field. Since Target Field opened in 2010, Minnesota has a 7-19 (.269) home record against the Bronx Bombers. Over that span, only two teams have that low of a home winning percentage against a particular opponent (minimum 10 games): Reds vs. Mets (6-17, .261) and Mariners vs. Yankees (7-19, 269).

According to ELIAS – Brian Dozier

Dozier leads off second straight game with home run

 

Brian Dozier

Brian Dozier hit a leadoff home run in the Twins’ 4–2 win at Houston last night. It was the second time in a span of less than a year that Dozier has led off consecutive games with homers, having also done so last September. No other player in franchise history has more than one streak of at least two straight games hitting a leadoff home run.

Brian Dozier extended his Twins all-time franchise record for career leadoff homers last night, slugging the 22nd of his career. Dozier passed Jacque Jones Friday night with his 21st career leadoff home run. His 22 leadoff home runs are tied third most in the majors since his debut season in 2012. Dozier is tied with Shin-Soo Choo and trails only Charlie Blackmon (25) and Ian Kinsler (24) in that span.

Batting in the first spot in the order, Dozier also ranks in the top 10 in Twins history in
home runs (1st, 88), RBI (3rd, 226), walks (4th, 161), runs (5th, 256), doubles (5th,
98), hits (7th, 409), and triples (tied 9th, 10).

According To ELIAS

Astros have the Twins’ number

The Astros defeated the Twins on Friday, 10–5, scoring in double digits for the fifth time in their last seven games. Houston has scored 73 runs in that stretch, the third-highest total for a major-league team this season. Washington scored 77 runs over the last seven days of April and had 76 runs from April 25 to May 2.

The Astros have won their last seven games against the Twins, the last six of which they’ve won by at least five runs. That ties the longest streak of that kind over the last 89 seasons (1929 to date); the most recent instance was by the White Sox against the Tigers spanning the 1995 and 1996 seasons.

According to ELIAS – Time to Play Ball Again

Top MLB teams ready to resume play

The Dodgers and Astros reside in the top spots of their respective leagues entering play today. Los Angeles owns the best record in the majors at 61–29, while Houston, at 60–29, holds a 16.5-game lead in the AL West, the largest divisional lead of any team currently in first place. No team in the wild-card era has failed to qualify for the postseason after winning at least 60 of their first 90 decisions of a season. The last team to fall short of the postseason after such a start was the 1993 Giants, who started the season 60–30 and finished 103–59, one game behind the Braves in the NL West.

The Dodgers and Astros are two of five teams that did not suffer a losing streak of four or more games before the All-Star break, along with the Diamondbacks, Indians, and Red Sox. It has been 60 years since the last time multiple teams finished a season with no four-game losing streaks. In 1957, the Milwaukee Braves and the New York Yankees, who opposed each other in that year’s World Series, both finished the regular season with no losing streaks of four or more games.

According to ELIAS – Home Runs and Strikeouts are up, up and away

Home runs and strikeouts were the pre-break stories

There have been 3343 home runs hit in the 1326 major-league games this season, an average of 2.52 per game. That’s the second-highest homers-per-game average at the All-Star break in MLB history. (That figure was at 2.56 in 2000, before falling off to 2.34 at season’s end, which still stands as the all-time record.) The average of 16.48 strikeouts per game this year is the highest at the break in MLB history.

According to ELIAS – Twins bounce back from 6 runs down

Twins spot the O’s a TD, win it with 3 field goals

The Twins spotted the Orioles a 6-0 early advantage built on three early home runs, but slow-and-steady won the race as Minnesota, without benefit of a single round-tripper, attained a 9-6 victory at Target Field last night. How did the Twins do it? Every player in the lineup either scored or drove in at least one run, and Paul Molitor’s crew produced seven hits in 13 at-bats with runners in scoring position. That performance lifted the Twins’ season batting average with runners in scoring position to .254, the highest that it’s been since the first week in May.

Meanwhile, it was the second game that the Orioles have lost this season after leading by at least six runs. Back on April 28, the Orioles blew a 9-1 lead and wound up losing to the Yankees, 14-11. No other major-league team has lost two games after leading by six-plus runs this season.

According to ELIAS

Twins big innings

The Twins scored all six of their runs in the third inning in their win over the Orioles at Target Field last night. It’s the ninth time that the 2017 Minnesota Twins have scored a half-dozen runs in an inning this season, the highest total in the major leagues. Minnesota scored six runs in an inning only three times last season.