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
Cleatus is the only player to make his major league debut as a Minnesota Twins player on May 30th.
Cleatus Davidson (2B/SS) – May 30, 1999 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 2nd round of the 1994 amateur draft
Here is what the May 29 Twins GameNotes say about yesterdays game:
The Twins lost to the Rays yesterday by a score of 8-6 in 15 innings, losing the three-game series two games to one. At six hours and 26 minutes, the game marked the longest game in Target Field history and the second-longest game in the history of the Twins (longest: six hours and 36 minutes on May 7, 1995 at Cleveland). The loss to Tampa was Minnesota’s longest game by innings since April 24, 2016 at Washington (16 innings). The Twins/Rays game was the longest game in the major leagues this season (previously: 6:05 by New York-AL at Chicago-NL on May 7).
It marked the Twins first loss in which Minnesota led in the ninth inning (previously 25-0).
Twins pitchers struck out a season-high 17 batters, their most since recording 19
strikeouts August 19, 2007 vs. Texas.
Joe Mauer drew three walks to pass Kent Hrbek for second on the Twins all-time list
(840), trailing Harmon Killebrew (1,321). Mauer hit his 133rd career home run, moving him past Jacque Jones for 11th place on the Twins all-time list. He recorded a season-high
four hits and reached base a career-high seven times, becoming the second Twin ever
to reach base seven-plus times in a game, joining Rod Carew (8 times on May 12, 1972
vs. Milwaukee).
Some other facts about the loss to Tampa yesterday:
The announced crowd for the game was 28,951, Twins manager Paul Molitor guessed about 1,500 stayed to watch what turned out to be a bitter ending for Minnesota.
Twins used nine pitchers tying a franchise record equaled on five other occasions.
The total pitch count for the Rays and Twins was 553 pitches (289 by Minnesota).
With a burnt out bullpen the Twins made two moves this morning, putting Justin Haley on the 10-day DL and sending Kennys Vargas to AAA Rochester. The Twins called up pitchers Drew Rucinski and Jason Wheeler who has yet to make his big league debut.
Chattanooga Lookouts (AA) right-handed pitcher John Curtiss has been named Twins minor league Player of the Week. Curtiss saved three games for the Lookouts, pitching 3.0 scoreless innings with one walk and six strikeouts in three games. The Dallas native was drafted by the Twins in the sixth round of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Texas and signed for a reported $266,900 signing bonus.
Here is what one scouting report has to say about John Curtiss:
The former Texas Longhorns closer put together 61 strong innings in 2016, primarily at High A Fort Myers, and followed-up his regular season campaign with a solid AFL performance that saw him strike out almost two batters per innings pitched. Curtiss can work 95-to-97 mph with good life down in the zone and will also show a mid- to upper-80s slider that will flash. The arm generally works well and our looks in the AFL prompted a Joe Nathan (RHP, Giants) comp on the strapping righty. While control has been an issue in the past, Curtiss tightened up his execution in 2016. If he can maintain that his momentum heading into 2017 he could emerge as a quality late-inning arm for the Twins, logging innings in Minneapolis as early as this upcoming summer.
In 2017 the 6’4″ Curtiss has pitched 17+ innings and allowed just one run (unearned), allowed 10 hits and struck out 25 batters. The downside about Curtiss is that he has walked 10 batters. Unless he falls apart or gets hurt, you have to figure on seeing John Curtiss at Target Field this year, at least for a cup of coffee in September.
Medi-facts – Underwent Tommy John surgery in the summer of 2012 and sat out the entire 2013 season while at Texas. Missed much of the 2015 season with a concussion.
Twins Minor League Report 05292017
An interesting read about Rochester manager Mike Quade and batting orders today in the Democrat & Chronicle: Baseball managers use Sabermetrics to construct batting order
Morrison and Longoria go back-to-back in the 15th inning
Logan Morrison and Evan Longoria hit back-to-back home runs in the 15th inning yesterday to give the Rays an 8-6 win over the Twins. It’s the third time in major-league history that a pair of players hit back-to-back home runs in the 15th inning or later. Boston’s Frank Malzone and Dick (Dr. Strangeglove) Stuart did it in the 15th inning at Tiger Stadium on June 11, 1963, and Brian Hunter and Craig Biggio did it for the Astros at Shea Stadium on June 16, 1995.
Lewwwww made his major league debut as a Minnesota Twins player on May 29.
Lew Ford (OF) – May 29, 2003 – Traded by the Boston Red Sox to the Minnesota Twins for Hector Carrasco on September 9, 2000. A hit in your first at bat, NICE! Lew went on to become one of the real characters in Minnesota Twins lore.
A Quick Study At the Plate Minnesota’s Lew Ford
Friday (Lew Ford and Minnesota sports characters) edition: Wha’ Happened?
Brian Dozier hit a two-run, two-out homer as the first batter to face Rays reliever Tommy Hunter in the eighth inning, snapping a 2-2 tie and propelling the Twins to a 5-3 triumph at Target Field yesterday. It was just the seventh homer this season for Dozier, who belted 42 last year, but he’s actually ahead of last year’s schedule. He didn’t hit his seventh of last season until June 7 (and then didn’t hit his eighth until June 19). And he has a history with Hunter: The first walk off homer of Dozier’s big-league career was surrendered by Hunter (then with Baltimore) on July 6, 2015, also breaking a 2-2 tie.
There were 16 major-league games played on Saturday (including one doubleheader), and here were the final scores of those games: 3-2, 3-1, 5-3, 3-0, 6-0, 4-3, 3-0, 6-1, 5-2, 5-2, 4-3, 5-0, 5-2, 5-4, 3-0 and 6-3. That’s right. No team scored more than six runs in any of Saturday’s 16 games. That marked the first time in major-league history, dating to 1876, that no team had scored more than six runs on a day on which at least 16 games were played. (If you’re wondering, Saturday, May 27, 2017 was the 703rd day in major-league history on which at least 16 games were played.)
This came on the heels of Elias’s discovery that Friday, May 26 marked the first day in major-league history on which at least 15 games were played and there were no sacrifice bunts. You had two triples, a grand-slam homer, even a batter awarded first base on catcher interference, but nary a sacrifice bunt. (There had been 2900 days on which at least 15 games were played through Friday, May 26.)
Chris Archer and the Rays defeated the Twins 5-2 at Target Field on Friday and Archer improved to 4-0 to go along with a 1.38 ERA in four career starts at the Twins’ home stadium. Archer’s 1.38 ERA at Target Field is the lowest for any pitcher with at least four starts there, below Ubaldo Jimenez (1.81) and Mark Buehrle (1.85).
Bonus: LEGENDS, SIMPSONS TEAM UP FOR MEMORABLE HALL OF CLASSIC
I recently bought a book called “Extra Innings Baseball” at an estate sale and it has some interesting facts and stories and I thought I would share a couple of items from the book even though I just started reading it.
Did you know that: Kirby Puckett was the first player born in the 1960s to be elected to the Hall of Fame?
Did you know that: One of the oddest home runs in history took place at American League Park which was the home of the Washington Senators from 1904 to 1910. In this ballpark there was a doghouse near the outfield flag pole. The groundskeeper stored the flag in the doghouse between games. One afternoon the doghouse door was left open, and a member of the Senators hit the ball inside of it. Philadelphia A’s center fielder Socks Seybold crawled to retrieve the ball and got stuck allowing the batter to circle the bases for an “inside the doghouse” home run.
Did you know that an outfielder is sometimes referred to as a “gardener”?
Did you know that: The great Hall of Famer Walter Johnson who pitched for the Washington Senators from 1907 to 1927 and who many consider the greatest pitcher ever won 417 games and yet had a 5.3 SO/9 rate? Still he had 3,509 career strikeouts, maybe it had something to do with a 2.17 ERA, a 1.06 WHIP and a 0.1 HR/9 ratio.
I will let you know when I find more “cool” stuff. Have a wonderful Memorial Day week-end and don’t forget why you can celebrate Memorial Day!
San Diego Padre (and Minnesota native) left-hander Brad Hand is supposedly on the market. Hand led the NL in appearances in 2016 with 82 pitching 89 plus innings and striking out 111 while giving up just 63 hits and posting a 2.92 ERA. The 6’3″ 27 year-old Hand blossomed last season when he became a full-time relief pitcher. Hand is making just under $1.4 million this season and is arbitration eligible for the first time in 2018. Did I mention that Hand held left-handed opponents to a .123/.234/.221 batting line in that time but also shut down right-handed batters to the tune of a .219/.295/.350 triple slash. You would think that with San Diego rebuilding, the Twins would have someone they could part with to have Brad provide a Hand in the Twins bullpen……. I am not big normally on making up trade proposals but if the price is right, this is a no brainer. Don’t forget, prospects are just that, this is a “Brad in the Hand”. Am I on a roll or what?
Apparently Trevor May isn’t spending all his time rehabbing and based on this article he doesn’t seemed to be too down and out about his injury and TJ surgery.
Glancing Back, and Remembering Bernie Allen is a nice little piece about former Twins 2B Bernie Allen in 1960s baseball, a site I really enjoy. They also have a cool report called “The Top Ten Minnesota Twins (or any team for that matter) of the 1960s” that you can download for free. Take them up on their offer, you can’t go wrong. Click on the book cover to download.
Although the following “According to ELIAS” post is not Twins related, any time you get 20 strikeouts in a nine inning game it is worth mentioning.
Craig Kimbrel was credited with four strikeouts in the ninth inning on Thursday night, tying a major-league record and boosting the total of strikeouts by Red Sox pitchers to 20 in their victory over the Rangers, tying the major-league record for strikeouts by a team in a nine-inning game.
Nomar Mazara, first up for Texas in the ninth, swung and missed at the third strike, as the ball apparently hit his left foot. Although he would have been automatically out had that been the call, he ran to first base and was permitted to remain there, as the umpires apparently did not rule that the ball had hit him, so that when it bounced toward the third-base dugout, it was still live. No sweat for Kimbrel, he just struck out the next three batters to join AJ Burnett, Zack Greinke and Chuck Finley as the only major-league pitchers who have struck out more than three batters in an inning more than once. (Kimbrel also did it with Atlanta in 2012; Finley had three such innings in his career.) Red Sox pitchers have now accounted for three of the six instances in which a team accumulated 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. Roger Clemens accounted for the two other cases personally, against the Mariners in 1986 and at Detroit in 1996.
I really don’t care who you vote for the 2017 All-Star game, except…..that I do urge you to vote for Twins third baseman Miguel Sano. The man is having a tremendous season and he deserves to represent us Minnesota Twins fans along with Ervin Santana in Miami in July. Click on the image to vote.
The following players made their major league debut’s as Minnesota Twins on May 26.
Jason Miller (P) – May 26, 2007 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 4th round of the 2000 MLB June Amateur Draft
Brad Thomas (P) – May 26, 2001 – Signed as a Free Agent with the Minnesota Twins on May 12, 1997. Big league debut not exactly a smooth one for Brad as a starter, Johan Santana came in to relieve him.
Only one major league debut as a Minnesota Twins today.
Rob Radlosky (P) – May 25, 1999 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 22nd round of the 1993 amateur draft. Radlosky’s debut was one he would rather forget, first three batters hit a single, double, and a home run. When his three innings of relief were over at the Metrodome, Rob had faced 18 batters giving up 7 hits, 2 walks, 6 earned runs, and last but not least 2 home runs. Before you make fun of him, remember that he pitched in the big leagues, you and I didn’t. By the way, I am looking for pictures of Rob Radlosky in a Twins uniform, if you can help, please let me know.