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
This is the Twins shift in the game against the Texas Rangers Joey Gallo yesterday. A catcher (Mitch Garver) and pitcher (Devin Smeltzer) and first baseman (Miguel Sano) in their normal positions but no one else is on the dirt. Five outfielders and yet Gallo hits a double off the right field wall, he also had a bunt single. My friend Wayne Hattaway would tell you “this isn’t real baseball”. Everytime you go to a baseball game you have a chance to see something you have never seen before.
AAA Rochester Red Wings outfielder Jaylin Davis and Low-A Cedar Rapids Kernels right-handed pitcher Luis Rijo have been named Twins minor league Player and Pitcher of the Week.
Jaylin Davis
In eight games (DH Friday) for the Red Wings, Davis hit .364 (12-for-33) with three
doubles, four home runs, eight RBI, two walks and a 1.128 OPS. Davis, 25, was a 25th round pick by the Twins in 2015 and has hit .284 (81-for-285) with 15 doubles, 17 home runs and 47 RBI in 77 games between Double-A Pensacola and Rochester.
Luis Rijo – Credit to Dennis Hubbard/Four Seam Images
Rijo made the start on Thursday vs. Burlington, pitching 7 shutout innings with one hit allowed, no walks and 10 strikeouts. The 20-year-old Venezuela native was acquired by the Twins in 2018 from the New York Yankees, in exchange for right-handed pitcher and current Texas Ranger Lance Lynn.
The Twins beat the Texas Rangers last night by a score of 15-6 at Target Field. Martín Pérez (8-3) was the starter and winner, allowing four runs on seven hits in 6 innings pitched. The offense recorded 20 hits as each starter in the lineup recorded one hit and at least eight starters had multiple hits.
13 extra-base hits tied a Twins single-game record set earlier this season in game two
of a doubleheader on April 20 at Baltimore.
20 hits marked a season-high, their most since June 13, 2017 vs. Seattle when they
set a club-record with 28, it marked the 57th time in club history for the Twins to reach
20 hits in a game.
Nine doubles tied for the most in Senators/Twins history (since 1901), tying the Senators’ nine back on June 9, 1934 (box score) at Boston and Hall of Fame pitcher Left Grove.
Todd Walker was a Minnesota Twins first round pick (8th overall) in 1994 out of LSU and signed with the Twins for $815,000. That was a good draft for the Twins as they also got pitcher Travis Miller in round 2, catcher A.J. Pierzynski in round 4, and maybe the best of the group, third baseman Corey Koskie in round 26.
Walker made his debut on August 30, 1996 at County Stadium against the Brewers and started at third base and then moved to second later in the game. TK had Walker hitting sixth in the line-up and ended the day going 1 for 5 with a run scored in a loss to the Brewers when Marc Newfield hit a walk-off home run off Twins reliever Jose Parra leading off the bottom of the 12th inning.
Walker shuffled between the big leagues and minors in 96 and 97 but was a Twins starter in 1998-1999. On July 15, 2000 after a slow start and spending time in TK’s doghouse where Walker was a semi-regular resident, he was traded to the Colorado Rockies along with Butch Huskey for Todd Sears and cash. Walker was known for his hitting and not his glove and that didn’t sit well with skipper Tom Kelly. In addition it seemed like TK was not a fan of college players in general. Walker eventually on to the Reds, Red Sox, Cubs, Padres and spent his final season in the big leagues with the A’s in 2007.
All in all Todd Walker spent all or parts of 12 seasons in the big leagues and played in 1,288 games and ended his big league career with a .289 average and a 10.5 WAR.
Baseball America did a “where are you now” article on Todd Walker that you can read here.
The Twins have named AAA Rochester Red Wings first baseman/outfielder Zander Wiel and A+ Ft. Myers Miracle right-handed pitcher Cole Sands as Twins minor league Player and Pitcher of the Week.
Zander Wiel
In seven games for the Red Wings, the 26 year old Wiel hit .433 (13-for-30) with two home runs, five doubles, eight RBI, 24 total bases and five runs scored, including five multi-hit games. The Tennessee native was drafted by the Twins in the 12th round of the 2015 draft out of Vanderbilt University. This marks Wiels’ third career weekly honor, first since Sept. 4, 2016. Wiel is 6’3″ and goes about and hits and throws tight-handed. Wiel has advanced through the Twins organization and had a taste (15 games) of AAA ball last season and has spent all of this year in Rochester.
Cole Sands
Sands made one start for the Miracle, throwing 5.0 no-hit inning with six strikeouts last Sunday against Jupiter. Sands, just 21 was a fifth-round selection in the 2018 MLB draft out of Florida State. Sands, a right-hander started his pro career this year in A ball with the Cedar Rapids Kernels and has advanced to A+ Ft. Myers. This is his first weekly honor. Sands signed for a reported (Twins Daily) $600,000 with the slot value being $330,400.
Sorry for the delay in getting these Twins minor league player of the week updates out here on the site. My wife and I were on vacation for a couple of weeks taking a cruise to Alaska on the NCL Jewel out of Vancouver and then we spent a week touring the interior of Alaska. What a beautiful state even it it doesn’t have a big league baseball team. We were there for two weeks and we never saw darkness, it takes a bit of getting used to. Then again if you went in December it would always be dark.
I have missed baseball since you get no news on a cruise ship and the one newspaper I saw in Anchorage on our last day in Alaska has little to no MLB baseball coverage. So let’s see what we missed.
Two weeks ago the Twins named AAA Rochester Red Wings outfielder/first baseman Brent Rooker and Rookie-Elizabethton left-handed pitcher Ryley Widell as the organization’s minor league player and pitcher of the week.
Brent Rooker
Rooker, who was drafted 35th overall by the Twins in the 2017 First-Year Player Draft, played seven games for the Red Wings this week, hitting .429 (9-for-21) with two doubles, three home runs, 10 RBI, four walks and a 1.488 OPS.
The 24 year old Rooker is in a rush to the big leagues having split his 2017 season in Rookie Elizabethton and A+ Fort Myers, 2018 in AA Chattanooga, and 2019 in AAA Rochester. In 55 games in Rochester this year Rooker is hitting .290 with 13 home runs and 42 RBI. This season Rooker has spent his time in LF/DH but he has some played first base in 2017-2018. Might see a cup of coffee at Target Field in September.
Ryley Widell
Ryley Widell, who was drafted by the Twins in the seventh round of the 2017 Draft, pitched in one game this week, Wednesday against Bluefield, allowing just two runs (1 earned) on two hits, with no walks and six strikeouts in 4.0 innings pitched.
Widell, a 6’3″ lefty pitched in 8 games for Elizabethton in 2017 and missed 2018 due to injury and started this season in Elizabethton again this season.
C.J. Cron has 45 RBI this season, ranking second on the team to Eddie Rosario (52), his 15 home runs are half way to his single-season career-high of 30, done last season with Tampa Bay. As of Monday’s AL All-Star Game balloting, he ranked second among first basemen with 302,586 votes, trailing Luke Voit (393,356) and ahead of José Abreu (286,145).
Cron rankings among AL first basemen:
second in slugging percentage (.541)
third in RBI (45)
fourth in doubles (14), OPS (.878), wOBA (.380) and batting average (.275)
After signing their first round (13th overall) selection Keoni Cavaco on Tuesday, the Twins have now signed 16 of their 41 players from the 2019 First-Year Player Draft:
The Minnesota Twins have gone 24-12 on the road this season, the most road wins in baseball. The Twins went 29-52 on the road in 2018 and didn’t record their 23rd road win
in 2018 until August 29 and their 24th road win until August 31.
Where the Twins offense ranks among all of baseball on the road*
Jake Cave finished 4-for-5 with four doubles and increased his International League-leading hitting streak to 13. (Photo: Bare Antolos/Rochester Red Wings)
The Minnesota Twins have named AAA Rochester Red Wings outfielder Jake Cave and AAA Rochester Red Wings right-handed pitcher Sean Poppen as Twins minor league Player and Pitcher of the Week.
Jake Cave as we all know has spent a good portion of the 2019 season with the Twins. Since being optioned from Minnesota in mid-May, the 26-year old Cave has played in 27 games for the Red Wings, hitting .294 (32-for-109) with 11 doubles, two triples, three home runs, 21 RBI and a .861 OPS. In eight games for the Red Wings this week, Cave hit .417 (15-for-36) with seven doubles, two triples, one home run and nine RBI, which included a four-double game on Thursday at Syracuse.
Jake Cave was originally a 2011 6th round pick by the New York Yankees and was selected by the Reds in the December 2015 Rule 5 draft but was returned to the NYY in April 2016. The Yankees then traded Cave to the Twins for minor leaguer Luis Gil on March 16, 2018.
Sean Poppen a 25-year old right-handed pitcher started two games this week for the Red Wings, going 1-0, 0.75 ERA (12.0 IP, 1 ER) with five walks and 13 strikeouts. Poppen was promoted to Rochester on May 26 and has appeared in four games and started three of them and has a 3-0 record with a 1.57 ERA with 25 strikeouts in 23 innings and has allowed just 14 hits in 23 innings. The numbers he has put up in Rochester are much better then the numbers he put up in AA Pensacola where he was 2-3 with a 4.40 ERA and a .275 average against.
Poppen, 6’3″ was selected by the Twins in the 19th round of the 2016 First-Year Player Draft out of Harvard and is in his fourth pro ball season.
Sean Poppen a 25-year old right-handed pitcher started two games this week for the Red Wings, going 1-0, 0.75 ERA (12.0 IP, 1 ER) with five walks and 13 strikeouts. Poppen was promoted to Rochester on May 26 and has appeared in four games and started three of them and has a 3-0 record with a 1.57 ERA with 25 strikeouts in 23 innings and has allowed just 14 hits in 23 innings. The numbers he has put up in Rochester are much better then the numbers he put up in AA Pensacola where he was 2-3 with a 4.40 ERA and a .275 average against.