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
Ft. Myers (High A) left-handed pitcher Stephen Gonsalves is the Twins minor league Player of the Week. Gonsalves made the start Tuesday night vs. Jupiter, allowing two runs (1 earned) on five hits in 7.0 innings pitched, with one walk and eight strikeouts, earning the win. Gonsalves has made three starts for the Miracle this season, going 1-1, 1.89 ERA (19.0 IP, 4 ER) with four walks and 18 strikeouts.
The 6’5″ Gonsalves was drafted (a real steal) by the Twins in the fourth round of the 2013 First-Year Player Draft out of Cathedral Catholic High School in San Diego. Gonsalves entered the season as the Twins ninth best prospect by Baseball America.
Personally I think that Gonsalves can turn out to be as good a pitching prospect if not better than Jose Berrios. The 21-year-old Gonsalves is in his 4th year of pro ball and his record so far stands at 20-8, with a 2.55 ERA along with a WHIP of 1.08. In 247.1 innings he has struck out 258 batters and allowed only 177 hits. I really don’t understand why Gonsalves is even in High A, he should be in AA as he has proven in 2015 that he can handle High A.
The Twins entered Friday’s game with an all-time record (since 1961) of 4,362-4,425 and an all-time franchise record (Senators and Twins) of 8,585-9,289. For sixty years, the Senators played baseball in our nation’s capital, winning one World Championship and three AL pennants. In 1961, owner, Calvin Griffith, moved the Senators from Washington, DC to Bloomington, Minnesota. The Senators played from 1901-1960, compiling a record of 4,223-4,864. Some notable Hall of Famers from the Senators teams include: Goose Goslin, Sam Rice, Joe Cronin, Bucky Harris, Heinie Manush and Walter Johnson. The Senators beat the New York Giants in the 1924 World Series in seven games, marking the only World Series victory for the franchise during their first sixty-year tenure in Washington. Source: Twins GameNotes
Brian Dozier and Miguel Sano each hit solo home runs as the Twins picked up their first road victory of the season, an 8-1 triumph over the Brewers. Minnesota started the season 0-7 away from home; that was their longest road losing streak to start a season, surpassing the previous mark of six in 1904, when the team was known as the Washington Senators. Over the last five years (since 2012), one other team started a season 0-7 on the road, the 2014 Marlins (lost first seven).
The Twins have hit two home runs in each of their last four games, their longest streak of games with multiple homers since September 2013 (also a four-game streak).
I don’t think that Willie Nelson and Jimmy Nelson are related but Jimmy made things tough for the Twins last night. Willie’s song “On the Road Again” should be added to all the Twins players listening lists so they can start to enjoy being on the road again.
The Twins are 0-7 on the road this season but that is a long ways from their longest losing streak that the team has encountered as road warriors. Back in 1961 the Minnesota Twins lost 14 road games in a row between May 16 and June 7 against the White Sox, Senators, Indians, Tigers and Yankees before finally breaking the road losing streak with a 3-1 win over the Orioles in Baltimore. Road woes are nothing new to the Twins, over the years they have lost 8 or more consecutive games away from the home confines 19 times. Let’s hope that we don’t make it 20 today.
Ft. Myers (High A) infielder Nick Gordon is the Twins minor league Player of the Week. Gordon played in six games for the Miracle, hitting .444 (12-for-27) with five doubles, one home run, four RBI, five runs scored, one walk and two stolen bases. Gordon spent 2015 with Cedar Rapids (Low A), hitting .277 (133-for-481) with 23 doubles, seven triples, one home run, 58 RBI, 79 runs scored and 25 stolen bases. The 20-year-old is the younger brother of Dee and the son of Tom “Flash” Gordon and was drafted by the Twins in the first round (5th overall) of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft out of Olympia (FL) High School and was signed by Minnesota for $3,851,000. Gordon entered the season as the Twins fourth best prospect by Baseball America.
The Braves and Twins both improved their records to 3-9 Sunday by completing three-game sweeps of the Marlins and Angels, respectively. Atlanta and Minnesota are the first teams in major-league history to win three straight games immediately after starting a season with nine or more consecutive losses.
Noonie is earning respect in Minneapolis
Eduardo Nunez continues to make it look easy, going 2-for-4 in the Twins’ 7-4 win over the Brewers. That dropped-yes dropped-Nunez’ batting average to .545 this season, with 12 hits in 22 at-bats. Over the last 25 years, only one other Twins player maintained a batting average above .500 at least 20 ABs into a season. Josmil Pinto was 13-for-25 to start his brief MLB career in 2013, Kirby Puckett did it twice in the 1980’s (a 14-for-27 start in 1984, and 13-for-25 in 1987).
Eduardo Nunez contributed three hits to the Twins’ first win of the season yesterday and he is 7-for-7 over his two starts this season. Nunez is the first Twins player since David Ortiz in July 2000 to go 7-for-7 (or better) over a span of two starts.
The Braves and Twins both lost Thursday, dropping their records to 0-9. It’s only the third time in major-league history that two teams started 0-9 or worse in the same season. It also happened in 1884 when Detroit of the National League and Altoona of the Union Association did it; and in 1988 when Baltimore and Atlanta did it.
The Twins scored only one run in their loss to the White Sox yesterday and have scored only 14 runs in nine games this season. That matches the fewest runs scored over the first nine games of a season in Twins franchise history. The 1949 Washington Senators also scored only nine runs over the first nine games of the season. That team finished with a 50-104 record. The last major-league team to have that offensive futility over its first nine games of a season was the 2004 Expos (10 runs), the last American League team was the 2003 Tigers (14).
The Twins are the second team in major-league history to lose each of their first nine games, and score three or fewer runs in each. The other was the 1988 Orioles, who lost a record 21-straight games to start the season. Baltimore failed to score as many as four runs in any of the first 12 games that season.
The Twins fell to 0-8 when they dropped a 3-0 decision to the White Sox yesterday in which he managed only four hits while striking out nine times. In fact, the Twins are the first major-league team to have more strikeouts than hits in each of their first eight games of a season since the pitching distance was established at 60 feet, 6 inches in 1893. Source ELIAS
But that is not all, the Twins losing streak stands at 8 games in 2016 but when you add-on three straight losses to the Kansas City Royals at the end of 2015 and you have a 11 game losing streak on your hands, tied for the third longest losing streak in Twins history. The longest losing streak of course belongs to the 1982 Twins that lost 14 in a row and finished the season with a 60-102 mark.
My patience with this team is starting to wear thin but there are too many players sleep-walking through the beginning of this season to change out a player or two to send a message. Where is that tirade of a veteran player to wake this team up? Yes, I am looking at you Joe Mauer, Trevor Plouffe and Brian Dozier.
Can horrendous starts two years in a row just be a coincidence? I have never believed in coincidences. It is time for Dave St. Peter, Terry Ryan, and Paul Molitor to show that they can turn a ball club around that is sinking faster than Justin Spieth did at the Masters this past Sunday.
Six games out with just eight games played? This can’t be real, what a nightmare!
Twins strikeouts versus runs scored history. Feel free to click on the chart to make it larger and easier to see.
Our Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves both stand at 0-7 and the race is on to see can win a game first. It is tough when you have just played seven games into a new season and find yourself five games out of the division lead. Never-the-less, Paul Molitor‘s gang will try again tonight.
The Twins might have to consider changing their name to the Minnesota Flailers. Joe Mauer is hitting .375 and Eduardo Escobar is hitting .370 but the rest of the line-up is hitting between .125 and .192 with a combined team OBP of .290. Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and Byung-ho Park have each struck out in 50% of their plate appearances.
OH! but the strikeouts. Needless to say the team is on a record pace and after seven games, admittedly a small sample size, they have struck out once every 3.29 PA’s and 11.29 times a game. It is hard to miss the ball that often. Their previous worst for strike-outs per PA was 4.34 in 2013, that same Twins team struck out an all-time franchise high of 1,430 times. But if you use the current running rate of 11.29 strike outs per game the 2016 Twins will strike out a record-breaking 1,829 times. I know that is unlikely to happen but right now that is exactly what is happening.
Paul Molitor and Terry Ryan have a huge mess on their hands but things can’t stay this bad for ever. Can they? Everything levels out so we all need to be patient and ride this storm out.
Let’s talk about strikeouts, how bad are they really? We could discuss the pro’s and con’s of strikeouts forever and cases can be argued that a strikeout by a batter is terrible and you could argue that there are worse things than a strikeout. Teams usually tolerate high strikeout rates if power is also involved but what if a batter has mediocre power and still strikes out frequently? What impact do strikeout really have on runs scored? After all, that is the object of the game isn’t it? Score more runs than the opponent and you win the game assuming your pitchers do their jobs.
Let’s take a look at the previous 55 seasons of Twins play. If you look at the numbers nothing really jumps out at you to tell you that strikeout are OK or horrendous. The Twins had an OK season by some standards last year and yet they still struck out 1,264 times and in 2002 they won 94 games and still struck out 1,089 times. On the other side of the coin the Twins only struck out 684 times in 1978 and still only won 73 games. Strikeouts in themselves will not determine if your team will win or not.
The Twins have only scored more runs than they have had strikeouts on four occasions in 55 seasons, in 1976 when they finished 85-77, in 1977 when they finished 84-77, in 1979 when they finished 82-80 and in their 1995 championship season when they were 95-67. Twins history seems to indicate that if you score more often than you strike out than you will have a winning season.
I think it is interesting to note here that Gene Mauch managed the Twins from 1976-1980, none of his team struck out more that 754 times. Just a coincidence or was it his managing style? Yet only three of those five years that Mauch managed the Twins, did they have a winning record and they never won more than 85 games under his leadership.
Strikeouts are obviously up across the board for a variety of reasons, since 2000 the Twins have played 15 seasons, during 11 of those they struck out over 1,000 times, the only other season they struck out of 1,000 times was in 1964.
During the Twins AL championship season of 1965 they struck out 969 times, in 1987 they struck out 898 times, and in 1991 they struck out only 749 times. The Twins have made the playoffs 11 times and they averaged 944 strikeouts during those years. Keep in mind too that six of those 11 playoff years were on this side of 2000.
If you added in the running rate of strikeouts in 2016 after just seven games you would see a sharp dive of that blue line to 3.29.
