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
In the last ten years the Twins have had four winning seasons and made the playoffs three times but in those seven play-off games their record is 0-7. So why the dry spell after the Twins had winning teams in 7 of 9 years before that?
If you look at the Twins drafts from 2009 thru current you might find your answer. The way baseball works you can’t expect your draft choices to produce in the big leagues for three or four years and it has been that way since who knows when. That baffles me because the NFL takes it players straight out of college, some after just three seasons and the next year they are professionals in the NFL. The NBA does it the same way but takes the cream of the crop college players after just one collegiate season and moves them to the pros. Baseball on the other hand is convinced that players out of high school or college can’t play in the big leagues. Oh, a handful of them have but for the most part you have to spend a few years in the minors and work you way up the ladder.
We all know that strikeout rates are up all across baseball for the last few years but today we will look at Minnesota Twins batters and their strikeout rates going back to 1961. We used B-R’s amazing Play Index to find what we were looking for.
The top two all time Twins leader in strikeouts are Harmon Killebrew with 1,314 and Joe Mauer with 1,034. Mauer? What the heck? Longevity can do strange things to numbers and the devil is in the details.
The 2018 baseball season is in the books, free agents everywhere are sitting back and waiting for the offers to pour in, a number of teams (including our Twins) have hired new managers. The temperature is 31 degrees outside and there is a slight coating of snow on the ground here in Plymouth so we know it is time to start sorting our candidates for the 2018 Twins Turkey of the Year.
The Twins finished in second place again this season behind the Cleveland Indians. This past season the Twins were 78-84 as compared to 85-77 in 2017 and this year they were just 13 games back as compared to 17 games behind the year previous. Yet the 2018 Twins were looked on as failures as compared to the 2017 team that was a Wild Card participant albeit for just the one game against the New York Yankees. Manager Paul Molitor was the American League Manager of the Year in 2017 and after the 2018 season ended he found himself unemployed along with most of his coaching staff after signing a new three-year contract just a year earlier. Twins fans were unhappy and attendance dropped to its lowest point since 2004 at the Metrodome. Meanwhile the Twins Front Office added to staff and continued the “new ways of fielding a winning team” such as increasing the number of shifts, playing four outfielders here and there and jumping on the new “opener” strategy employed by teams such as Tampa Bay and Oakland.
In the last five days of July the Falvey/Levine regime traded five experienced players off their big league roster and acquired 12 players that includes five pitchers, 4 outfielders and 4 infielders. The departed players have appeared in 2,674 games and the pitchers have notched 160 wins. The acquired players have no wins by the pitchers in the big leagues and have played in a total of 899 big league games of which Logan Forsythe has 807.
I grant you that Brian Dozier and Eduardo Escobar were both going to be free agents at the end of the season. Lance Lynn has not performed up to expectations, Zach Duke performed pretty much as expected and Ryan Pressly was probably over-worked but was a decent relief pitcher. The team itself has under-performed dramatically but to be fair I think the same can be said of the Twins “on the field” management staff.
24 – Straight games with a hit for Brian Dozier, dating back to last season, including 17 since the start of the 2018 campaign. Dozier extended his streak with a two-out, RBI single to left in the fifth inning off Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka, who was outstanding. Dozier’s hit streak is rapidly approaching the longest in Twins history, a 31-game run by Ken Landreaux in 1980. It’s also the longest hitting streak to span two seasons since Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt hit in 26 straight games between 2013-14. The longest two-season hit streak of the past 25 years, according to The Athletic’s Jayson Stark, is Jimmy Rollins’ 38 games between 2005-06. The single also allowed Dozier to extend his stretch of reaching base in a game to 34, dating back to September 12.
This is the second hitting streak for Dozier of 24 or more games, he is the only Twins player with two long streaks like this. Next up on the list is 25 in a row by Brian Harper. You can see the Twins longest hitting streaks by going to “Hitting Streaks” on the right hand side of the page.
10.43 – Twins team earned-run average on the road trip through four of seven games. Twins pitchers have allowed at least eight runs in all four contests and at least seven earned runs in each, too. Overall, the numbers have been putrid as Twins pitchers have allowed 40 runs (39 earned) in 33 2/3 innings along with 50 hits, 18 walks and 41 strikeouts.
Tyler Kinley
Question for the day – How long are the Twins going to hang on to Rule 5 pick-up Tyler Kinley?
Second baseman Brian Dozier extended his hitting streak to 15 games with a lead-off double last night in a 10-1 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field. The knock handed Dozier a share of the club record hitting streak to start the season, along with Kirby Puckett (1994) and Josh Willingham (2012). Dozier has now hit safely in 22 consecutive games, dating back to September 22. Dozier added a third-inning single to finish 2-for-4. He’s hitting .376 (35-for-93) during the streak.
Joe DiMaggio‘s 56-game hitting streak in 1941 is the longest in Major League Baseball history.
In baseball, a hitting streak is the number of consecutive official games in which a player appears and gets at least one base hit. According to the Official Baseball Rules, such a streak is ended when a player has at least one plate appearance and no hits. A streak shall not be terminated if all official plate appearances result in a base on balls, hit by pitch, defensive interference or a sacrifice bunt. The streak shall terminate if the player has a sacrifice fly and no hit.
The Minnesota Twins longest hitting streak, a 31 gamer by Ken Landreaux took place in 1980 starting in a 17-0 loss to the California Angels at Met Stadium on April 23 and ended on May 31 in an 11-1 loss to the Orioles at Met Stadium. During his streak Landreaux had 49 hits in 125 at bats and hit for a .392 average with a .937 OPS.
The longest streak by a current Twins player belongs to Brian Dozier who had a 24 hitting streak at the tail end of the 2016 season. The longest hitting streak in MLB history belongs to Joe Dimaggio who has the famous 56 game streak on the books, a record set in 1941 that most folks say will never be broken.
Minnesota Twins center fielder Byron Buxton was honored as the American League’s top defender on October 10, receiving the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award at the Gold Glove ceremony in New York. Buxton is the first Twins player to win a Platinum Glove, an award established in 2011. The National League Platinum Glove winner was third baseman Nolan Arenado from the Colorado Rockies.
In 2011, Rawlings unveiled the first-ever Rawlings Platinum Glove Award, a new fan-centric platform asking the game’s avid fans who the best defensive baseball player is among that season’s Rawlings Gold Glove Award® winners. To determine the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award winners, fans can only select one player among the Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners from each League.
Rawlings Platinum Glove Award voting – and its open and spirited debate on social media – proved what many believed to be true: fans have a very vocal opinion on who they believe is “the best of the best”, and they understand the defensive nuances enough to back their favorite player’s candidacy from the point-of-view of a scout and an advance analytics sabermetrician.
In 2013, a new sabermetric component from the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award’s new presenting sponsor, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and its new SABR Defensive Index™ (SDI™) joined the international fan vote to determine the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award winners from each league. The SDI’s ability to accurately compare players from different positions helped establish the “science” behind the evolving Award platform.
Buxton was also named the 2017 Wilson Defensive Player of the Year on Friday. Buxton and Brian Dozier won Gold Gloves for the first time this year.
Minnesota Twins outfielder Byron Buxton and second baseman Brian Dozier have been named recipients of the 2017 American League Rawlings Gold Glove Award at their respective defensive positions. This marks the first time that either player has earned the award.
The only other Twins second baseman to win a Gold Glove was Chuck Knoblauch in 1997 and the last time a Twins outfielder won a Gold Glove was Torii Hunter in 2007. Previous to Buxton and Dozier winning Gold Glove awards this season, you have to go all the way back to 2010 when Joe Mauer won it as a catcher.
You can view all the previous Minnesota Twins Gold Glove winners on our Twins Awards page.
The Twins scored three runs in the top of the first inning and the Yankees answered back with three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning in the American League Wild Card game. Only one other postseason game in major-league history saw each team score at least three runs in the first inning. In Game 4 of the 1993 World Series, the Blue Jays scored three times in the top of the first only to relinquish the lead in the bottom half of the inning when the Phillies scored four times in what is still the highest scoring World Series game in major-league history, a 15-14 Toronto win at Veterans Stadium.
Dozier and Rosario go deep in first postseason plate appearance
Brian Dozier and Eddie Rosarioeach homered in their first career playoff plate appearance in the first inning of the American League Wild Card game on Tuesday night. It’s only the third time in major-league history that multiple players from the same team each homered in their first postseason at bat in the same game. That previously happened on October 2, 1984, when the Cubs’ Bob Dernier (first inning) and Rick Sutcliffe (third inning) each did it; and on October 1, 1996 by the Orioles’ Brady Anderson (first inning) and B.J. Surhoff (second inning).
Yankees postseason domination of Twins continues
The Yankees beat the Twins in the American League Wild Card game on Tuesday. New York has now won each of the last 10 postseason games it has played against Minnesota, winning the last three games of the 2004 ALDS and registering three-game sweeps in the 2009 ALDS and 2010 ALDS prior to Tuesday’s win. That ties the second-longest postseason winning streak for one team against another in major-league history. The Red Sox won 11 straight postseason games against the Angels (1986-2008), the Yankees won 10 in a row against the Rangers (1996-2010) and the Athletics won 10 straight against the Red Sox (1988-2003).
Robertson’s strong relief effort lifts Yankees
David Robertson did not allow a run while getting 10 outs in relief in the Yankees’ win over the Twins in the American League Wild Card game. Robertson is the seventh pitcher in major-league history to record at least 10 outs without allowing a run while pitching in relief in a victory in a winner-take-all postseason game. Five of the other six pitchers to do it were starting pitchers during the regular season: Walter Johnson (1924 World Series), Vida Blue (1972 ALCS), Mike Torrez (1977 ALCS), Pedro Martinez (1999 Divisional Playoffs) and Madison Bumgarner (2014 World Series). The only other pitcher who was primarily a reliever to do that was the Yankees’ Joe Page in Game 7 of the 1947 World Series against the Dodgers. Page, who pitched in relief in 54 of his 56 regular-season appearances that season, pitched the final five innings and didn’t relinquish a run allowing New York to capture the World Series with a 5-2 victory. Robertson threw 52 pitches in his outing. Those are the most pitches Robertson has ever thrown in a game in his major-league career. His previous high was 45 on July 1, 2008.
Judge’s magical season extends into the playoffs
Aaron Judge hit a two-run home run in the fourth inning giving the Yankees a 7-4 lead in a game they would go on to win 8-4 over the Twins in the American League Wild Card game on Tuesday. Judge is the third rookie in Yankees history to homer in his first career postseason game, joining Elston Howard (1955) and Shane Spencer (1998).
