Major League debuts as Minnesota Twins – Guerrier, Wiley and Whitby

Three major league debuts as Minnesota Twins on June 17 ranging from 1964 to 2004.

 

Twins reliever Matt Guerrier pitches during the seventh inning during Friday’s interleague game against the Houston Astros at the Metrodome in Minneapolis on June 20, 2009. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

Matt Guerrier (P) – June 17, 2004 – Selected off waivers by the Minnesota Twins from the Pittsburgh Pirates on November 20, 2003. Guerrier’s debut was as the Twins starter at Olympique Park at Montreal in a Twins win but Guerrier received a ND for his efforts that day. Turns out that starting was not Guerrier’s forte.

 

Mark Wiley

 

Mark Wiley (P) – June 17, 1975 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 2nd round of the 1970 amateur draft. Wiley’s debut took place in the middle of an eight run outburst by the Oakland A’s at the Met.

 

Bill Whitby

Bill Whitby (P) – June 17, 1964 – Signed as an amateur free agent in 1961 and debuted in relief in a 5-0 loss at Cleveland Stadium pitching 1.1 innings and allowing 2 hits and 1 run (a home run by Pedro Ramos).

 

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Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Jackson & Rollins

Two players made their major league debuts as Twins on June 16, both a few years ago.

Darrell Jackson (P) – June 16, 1978 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 9th round of the 1977 amateur draft. Jackson was originally drafted by Minnesota as a sixth round selection in 1973 out of high school but chose to go to Arizona State University where he had the opportunity to play in three College World Series while he attended school there. Jackson debuted in pro ball with the Orlando Twins in 1978 and in his first professional game pitched nine innings of no-hit ball against the Jacksonville Suns. Unfortunately, the game was tied after nine innings, and Jackson was relieved by fellow future Twin Jeff Holly. Orlando won the game, 1–0, in 12 innings. After just 10 starts in the minors, Jackson was called up to the Twins. 

Rich Rollins – Twins 3B from 1961 – 1968

Rich Rollins (3B) – June 16, 1961 – Signed as amateur free agent in 1960. Rollins was the sixth player to make his major league debut as a Minnesota Twin. Rollins debuted against the White Sox going 1 for 4 off pitchers Don Larsen and Early Wynn. In his first full season with Minnesota in 1962 he was selected to both All-Star games and finished 8th in MVP voting behind winner Mickey Mantle.

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According to ELIAS – Jose Berrios

Berrios setting records after a late debut

 

Jose Berrios

Jose Berrios improved to 6–1 this season, allowing two runs in eight innings in Minnesota’s 6–2 win over Seattle yesterday. Berrios is only the second Twins pitcher since 1980 to win at least six of his first seven appearances in one season. The other was Brad Radke in 2001. Berrios, who didn’t make his season debut until May 13, is the first pitcher in franchise history to win six games this early in the calendar year after not pitching in the majors in April. (That includes the Washington Senators from 1901 through 1960.)

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 14 – Tigers score 10 in the sixth, Carew and Boswell

AL Standings after play on June 15, 1967

Between June 1 and June 15 the Twins fired (Sam Mele) and hired a manager (Cal Ermer) and went 10-6 playing all but one of the games at the friendly confines of Met Stadium. The team managed to pick-up 2.5 games in the standings but they still find themselves trailing the Chicago White Sox by four games.

June 13 wasn’t a great day in spite of the fact that the Twins scored in double-figures for the third day in a row and found themselves on the losing end of a 15-10 game. The Twins and Dean Chance were up 5-1 going into the sixth inning against the Detroit Tigers at the Met when the “S%#@” hit the fan, Chance gave up four singles and walked two before skipper Cal Ermer had seen enough and brought in reliever Jim Ollom who promptly gave up a single and a walk and he too found himself headed for the shower as Mudcat Grant came in to stop the bleeding. Three singles later Grant was gone and Jim Roland took the mound and promptly threw a wild pitch to allow another run, a passed ball followed which led to a sac fly, another Twins error kept the nightmare inning alive before Roland finally got the third out of the inning. When the smoke cleared the Tigers had put a 10 spot on the Twins and led the game 11 to 5. That would be 10 runs on 8 singles, three walks, two Twins errors, a wild pitch and a passed ball and a partridge in a pear tree. OMG! What we had here was the first time in Twins history that an opponent had scored 10 or more runs against the Twins in a single inning. The Twins bounced back with 5 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning to make it an 11-10 game but the Tigers scored 3 in the seventh and another in the eighth inning and the final score was 15-10 for the Tigers.

Here a couple of clippings out of the June 14, 1967 Minneapolis Tribune Sports section describing the action.

Trib 06141967 P1

Trib 06141967 P25

Trib 06141967 P28

The June 10, 1967 Sporting News has a nice piece about Rod Carew and his base running problems and this time pitching coach Early Wynn puts Dave Boswell through his “wringer” method of fixing a pitchers problems.

Sporting News 06101967 P3

Sporting News 06101967 P6

The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Byron Buxton

The only player to make his major league debut in a Twins uniform did so just two years ago today.

Byron Buxton

Byron Buxton (OF ) – June 14, 2015 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round (2nd) of the 2012 MLB June Amateur Draft. This high school draftee made his Twins debut just two years after being drafted second overall in 2013.

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According to ELIAS – Eddie Rosario

Rosario and the Twins put up the big numbers

Eddie Rosario

The Twins scored 20 runs on a franchise record 28 hits in a blowout win over the Mariners at Target Field last night. Leading the way was the batter hitting ninth, Eddie Rosario, who had three home runs and five RBIs. Since runs batted in were first tracked in the 1920 season, only two other players had that many home runs and RBIs starting out of the ninth slot in the order: Dale Sveum of the Brewers in 1987 versus the Angels (3 HR/6 RBIs), and Trot Nixon of the Red Sox in 1999 at Detroit (3/5). Rosario is the seventh Twins hitter to hit 3 home runs in a single game.

Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Guardado & Jimenez – June 13

Two players again today making their major league debuts as Minnesota Twins on June 13 but 10 years apart.

 

Eddie Guardado

Eddie Guardado (P) – June 13, 1993 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 21st round of the 1990 amateur draft. “Every Day” Eddie debuted as a starter but even though the Twins scored four times for him in the bottom of the first inning, Guardado could not get out of the fourth inning at the Dome against the A’s. Eddie can still be found in the Twins bullpen today, as the bullpen coach.

 

Houston Jimenez

Houston Jimenez – (SS) – June 13, 1983 – Signed as a Free Agent with the Minnesota Twins on October 28, 1980. Jimenez went 1 for 5 in his debut at the Dome with a double off Steve Renko in his second big league at bat.

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Is the Falvey and Levine draft plan conservative or are they risk-takers

The big day has finally arrived and no one has leaked who the Minnesota Twins will pick with the first pick in the 2017 June Amateur draft. Maybe the Twins don’t know that themselves as yet? But when that pick is announced we will finally get some insight into the Twins long-term plans that Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have been keeping under the covers.

There appears to be no consensus number one player to select but the top three seem to be Hunter Greene a RHP/SS from Notre Dame HS in Sherman Oaks, California, Kyle Wright a RHP from Vanderbilt and Brendan McKay a LHP/1B from Louisville. Naturally everyone has an opinion on what Minnesota should do and no matter who they pick, half the fans will say they are dead wrong and the other half will say they got the next coming of Babe Ruth.

So here is another opinion of what the Twins should do, it is out of the box thinking but I think this is a real opportunity for the Twins to get a step ahead of the rest of MLB and show that they are leaders and not followers. Both Hunter Greene and Brendan McKay are two-way players, pitchers and position players but they differ in the fact that Greene is coming out of high school and McKay is coming out of college. Most teams want Greene as a RHP and McKay as a 1B but no RHP out of high school has ever been selected number one and who wants to burn the first overall pick on a collegiate 1B? To my way of thinking picking a two-way player doubles your risk, not only might you pick the wrong player but you might also choose the wrong position for him.

I want the Twins to take a player that can help them sooner than later, I think the Twins should select RHP Kyle Wright from Vanderbilt and persuade him to sign for a bit less money so that the Twins can use those dollars for other picks in this draft. How do you convince Wright to take less? You tell him he will be the number one pick in the draft and that you will sign him to a big league contract, put him on the Twins 25 man roster, give him a Twins uniform and put him in the Twins bullpen. 

You are talking about an experienced collegiate pitcher and a Twins bullpen that in a word, “stinks”. What have you got to lose by doing this? What better way to learn the ropes than by pitching out of a big league bullpen? The twins are not a playoff team anyway, let Wright learn but pitching out of the Twins bullpen and use him to help attract fans to the stands, everyone wants to see the top pick in the draft pitch, a guy that goes from college to the bigs. 

Baseball could show other athletes that you don’t have to spend the next 3-5 years in the minors riding buses if you become a baseball player. These guys have been playing baseball their entire life, give them their due and give them a shot, if some make it right away so much the better, if they need more seasoning then so be it.

I know that some of you think I’m nuts and that service time should not be wasted, but is it really? You have a ton of money invested here, why not see if you can get a return on it right away? Let’s see what the Minnesota Twins are made of.

Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Kinnunen & Arrigo on June 12

Two players, both pitchers made their big league debut wearing the uniform of the Minnesota Twins on June 12.

Mike Kinnunen (P) – June 12, 1980 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 10th round of the 1979 amateur draft. Mike struck out his first big league batter but than a walk and a home run by Champ Summers became part of his debut. Kinnunen appeared in 21 games for Minnesota without getting a win, a loss or a save, as a matter of fact he didn’t get any wins, losses, or saves in his entire 48 game career. Mike held the MLB record for this stat until a few years ago when it was broken.

Gerry Arrigo

Gerry Arrigo (P) – June 12, 1961 – drafted from White Sox in 1960 first year draft. Only the fifth player in Twins history to make his big league debut wearing Minnesota across his chest. His debut was a start against the Red Sox at Fenway Park with only 2,984 fans in the stands. Arrigo pitched a scoreless first, then in the second inning he allowed a single to Frank Malzone, he hit Jim Pagliaroni with a pitch, Vic Wertz advanced the runners with a ground out to second. Don Buddin drew a walk and Red Sox pitcher Ike Delock singled to plate one run, than Chuck Shilling singled to score two more runs and Arrigo found himself with an unplanned early shower after just 1.1 innings.

 

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Twins Minor League Player of the Week – Nik Turley

Nik Turley

This weeks Twins Minor League Player of the Week is also today’s Minnesota Twins starting pitcher against the San Francisco Giants, left-hander Nik Turley. The 6’5″ Turley will be the fourth Twins pitcher to make major league debut this season following Randy Rosario, Jason Wheeler and Justin Haley. 

Turley tied a Southern League record with the  Chattanooga Lookouts (AA) by striking out eight straight batters on April 25 vs. Tennessee and also set a Frontier Field record by striking out 15 batters in just 6.0 innings in his last start on June 6 for the Rochester Red Wings (AAA) while allowing just 4 hits. The 15 strikeouts were the most by a Red Wings pitcher since 1988.

Between Chattanooga and Rochester, Turley struck out 84 of 204 total batters faced (41.2%). He struck out 45 of 86 total batters faced (52.3%) with the Lookouts.

The now 27-year old Turley was a 50th round selection (1,502 overall) by the Yankees in 2008 and has played in the minor league systems of the Yankees, Giants, Red Sox and the Twins as well as an independent league team. Turley is the first 50th round draft pick to reach the majors since Efren Navarro in 2011, and one of just three 50th round selections
to reach the major leagues since 2000 (also: Jarrod Dyson in 2010). 

In his 10th minor league season Turley has a 48-45 record with a 3.50 ERA. Turley changed the grip on some of his pitches this spring and seemingly has turned his career around. Nik has stated that former Yankee pitcher Bob Turley is a distant relative.

Red Wings pitcher Nik Turley called up to Twins after 15-strikeout game

Twins Minor League Report 06112017