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
The 32-32 Minnesota Twins who are 7 games out of first open a 13 game home stand against the first place Chicago White Sox on Friday, June 23. A crowd of 30,100 fans, the largest since opening day show up to see the White Sox starter Joel Horlen who is 8-0 duel against the 9-5 Twins ace Dean Chance. As predicted it turns out to be a pitching duel with both teams scoreless through 6 innings, the Twins have 4 hits and the White Sox just 3.
Chance holds Chicago scoreless in the top of the seventh while the Twins finally put a 1 on the board with a home run by Harmon Killebrew, his 12 of the month and 22 of the season. Chance finishes the shutout for his 10th win and Horlen is lifted for a pinch-hitter after 8 innings and Bobby Locker finishes up. Just one hour and 58 minutes after the game started Dean Chance retires Pete Ward for the 27th out and the game goes in the books as a 1-0 Twins win. The Twins pick up a game in the standings but still find themselves looking up at the Red Sox, Tigers and White Sox. Box Score
The Twins had a 5-2 lead after five innings of play at Tiger Stadium but the Tigers scored one in sixth and two in the seventh to tie the game at 5 apiece. The game was finally called a draw in the top of the ninth with Harmon Killebrew at the plate with two strikes and one out after Rod Carew led off the top of the ninth with a single but was caught stealing. The game had four rain delays and was called around midnight CDT. Box Score.
The Star Tribune pages below will tell you more about the Twins/Tigers game, a brawl in New York between the Yanks and Red Sox and more about the disagreement on the Twins bus between Tony Oliva and Ted Uhlaender that was supposedly instigated by Dave Boswell. At the end of the day the Twins were 32-31 and 6.5 games behind the high-flying Chicago White Sox.
Ervin Santana allowed one hit in his complete-game 6–0 home win over the White Sox. April 15 is the second-earliest calendar date on which a pitcher has thrown a complete-game no-hitter or one-hitter for the Twins franchise. Santana threw 107 pitches. Walter Johnson allowed one hit in a 3–0, season-opening win for the Washington Senators over the Philadelphia Athletics on April 14, 1910. Before that game, William Howard Taft started the tradition of the president throwing out the first pitch of the season (to Johnson, on that day.)
Ervin Santana has been lights out for the Twins to start the season. Santana allowed two hits over six scoreless innings in his win over the White Sox on Sunday, six days after allowing two hits and one run over seven innings in his Opening Day win over the Royals. Santana is the first pitcher in Twins/Senators history to win his first two starts of the season while allowing no more than two hits in either game. The last pitcher on any team to start his season in such a way was Jake Odorizzi, who allowed two hits in each of his first two starts – both wins – for the 2015 Rays. Odorizzi had just one game of that kind in his final 26 starts for Tampa Bay that year.
Like most baseball fans I can’t wait for the 2017 MLB season to begin. I have been excited for every baseball season to start for over 60 years now so that tells you that I am no rookie fan, you might compare me to the old veteran player that is looking to hang on for another season.
Spring brings hope as the weather warms, spring rains fall, the grass turns green, the leaves start to form on the trees and somewhere off in the distance you hear that yell that your ears have yearned for during the cold winter months, PLAY BALL!!
The home town Minnesota Twins ended spring training on Friday and flew to Minnesota after their final exhibition game which ended in a 3-3 tie against their AAA Rochester team. Spring training wins mean very little, in 2016 the Cubs finished their exhibition schedule with a 11-19 record and won the World Series. The 2016 Twins finished with a 19-11 record and when they looked at the standings when the season ended they saw a “59” in their W column. The 2017 Twins were 16-13 in this springs meaningless games.
This is the first season for the new Derek Falvey and Thad Levine regime and the third season as the Twins manager for Paul Molitor. Much has been said and written about Falvey and his approach to running a team and how appreciated he was in Cleveland. The consensus is that Falvey has taken over a tired old organization that time has passed by and a complete house-cleaning was in order. But Falvey and Levine have not done that, they have actually made very few moves both on the field and in the front office. I think that tells us something.
To me it sends a very clear message, the Minnesota Twins organization coming off a disastrous season in which they lost 103 games is not the pile of s*%# that everyone says it was and that the team has a bright future and all they need to do is fine tune it a bit and stay out of way to make sure they don’t screw it up. Falvey didn’t leave the Indians and Levine the Rangers to end up in some dead-end team with no hope, they came to Minnesota because they see what this team can and will be in the next few years. Believe me, the Twins organization is far from perfect and there will not be any playoff games played in Target Field in 2017 but this years team will not be the sad sack Twins of 2016.
The major weakness the Twins have is their relief pitching and Falvey and Levine did nothing to speak of to address that problem, that will come back to haunt the team this season. Can the starters be worse this year than last? I think not so I am expecting much more from that group in 2017. The young position players are just getting to the stage of realizing that they can play and compete at the big league level and they will be both fun and at times frustrating to watch. The Twins motto for this season should be “Grin and bear it cause good things are a-comin”.
My 2017 American League Central Division prediction
Here is how it is going to look after the 2017 season ends.
The 2017 American League pennant winners will be the Cleveland Indians and the National League pennant winning Washington Nationals will play in the 2017 World Series with the Indians winning in 6 exciting games. Enjoy the season.
Fifty years ago the Boston Red Sox won the American League pennant in 1967 in what many think is one of the most if not thee most exciting AL pennant races ever. The Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins finished one game back and the Chicago White Sox finished 3 games behind the Red Sox. My plan is to do some postings as the year goes along about the 1967 AL pennant race. I found an article in the April 17, 1967 Sports Illustrated called “RISING DYNASTY FOR THE BIRDS?” that does a recap on each AL team and predicts their chances for the 1967 season. Kind of a fun read. The Boston Red Sox of course played the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series and lost 4 games to 3.
Carl Yastrzemski won the triple crown in 1967 although he and Twins 1B Harmon Killebrew each had 44 home runs that year. Even though you know how the story ends, it will still be fun reliving it.
Carlos Rodon racked up 10 strikeouts in leading the White Sox to a 7-3 victory over the Twins at US Cellular Field yesterday. The Minnesota Twins loss was number 103, the most losses the team has suffered since they started play in 1961. Rodon began his outing by striking out the first seven Twins batters to face him. His streak of seven consecutive strikeouts to open the game tied the longest such streak for any American League pitcher to begin a start. The other AL pitcher with a game-opening streak of that length also did so for the White Sox. Joe Cowley struck out the first seven Rangers batters he faced for the White Sox on May 28, 1986, in Arlington. Rodon struck out the side to end his previous outing on Sunday against the Indians. Rodon’s 10 consecutive strikeouts spanning his last two starts is tied for the longest strikeout streak by any pitcher over the last 50 years.
The 1982 Minnesota Twins 60-102 season has been on the books for a long time as the Twins team with the most losses but that does not necessarily make them the worst team in Twins history. The Twins 2016 team is almost a cinch to break the record of 102 losses in a single season but like the 1982 team that does not mean they are the worst Twins team ever. Both teams had some very good players but in both cases their pitching staff was substandard or young and the position players were just starting to come into their own as major league players. The average age of the 1982 team was just barely over 25 years of age, the 2016 team by comparison has the youngest average position players in the league at 27 but the pitching staff is middle of the pack with and average age of just over 28.
Tonight the Twins are in Kansas City to play the Royals and they have a chance to lose game number 102 but the Twins will send their best pitcher (Ervin Santana) to the mound so they can put off the inevitable for another day.
The Twins loss number 102 back in ’82 took place on the final day of the season, Sunday, October 3 with White Sox starter LaMarr Hoyt facing off against Twins starter Brad Havens. The Chicago White Sox were in third place and the Twins occupied the cellar of the AL West a full 32 games out of first. Only 5,085 Twins fans paid t0 enter the Metrodome that day to watch this meaningless game but how many were actually there is probably another story.
The game was scoreless until the top of the fourth inning when the Tony La Russa led mighty whities put three runs on the board against the lefty Brad Havens on a home run by Tom Paciorek and a single by Marc Hill that scored two more. Havens day ended in the top of the sixth after he gave up a walk, a double and a ground out that scored the fourth run for the Sox. Twins manager Billy Gardner had seen enough and brought in reliever Paul Boris who got of the inning but allowed another run to score on a ground out and going into the bottom of the sixth inning the home town Twins were down 5 to zip. The Twins finally got on the board in the bottom of the sixth inning when Gary Ward had an infield single that scored Bobby Mitchell who had singled to lead off the inning. The White Sox added a run in the top of the eighth inning when Twins killer Harold Baines took Paul Boris deep to lead off the inning. Hoyt who would go on to pitch a complete game and win his league leading 19th game retired the first two Twins in the ninth before Greg Wells tripled bringing DH Randy Bush to the plate but he grounded out to the second baseman and Brad Havens and the Twins took the defeat. The game lasted all of 2 hours and 5 minutes and it was “wait until next year” for the Twins and their fans.
LaMarr Hoyt
The bearded LaMarr Hoyt was an interesting player to be sure, the following season he went on to win a league leading 24 games and take home the 1983 Cy Young award. In 1985 he found himself in San Diego where he was named the NL starting pitcher in the 1985 All-Star game at the Metrodome that the NL won by a 6-1 score and Hoyt was credited with the victory by allowing no earned run in 3 innings. By 1987 the 32-year old Hoyt was out of professional baseball due to problems with drugs. More info on Hoyt.
Rusty Kuntz who was the White Sox center fielder that day went on to play for the Twins in 1983 and tonight you will find him in Kansas City coaching for the Royals, I wonder if he remembers this day from back in 1982?
By the way, September 28 has been a very interesting day in Minnesota Twins history so please don’t forget to check it out on our This Day in Twins History page before you leave.
The Minnesota Twins did all of their scoring in the first three innings of their 11-3 win over the visiting White Sox yesterday. It was the second time this season that Minnesota scored 11 runs through the first three innings of a game at Target Field; they also did that in a 17-5 win over the Rangers on July 2. Before 2016, the Twins hadn’t scored 11 times before the fourth inning of a home game since August 15, 1987, against the Mariners at the Metrodome.
Odds are that you will not recognize the player in this picture but he is still in the Twins organization and has been on the Fort Myers Miracle coaching staff since 2006. He played in the big leagues for 18 seasons for seven different teams but never had more than 260 at bats in any single season and played for the Minnesota Twins in 1998, 1999 and 1990.
It has been over 25 years since a Minnesota Twins batter pinch-hit a grand slam for the Minnesota Twins. This Twins were ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning when “Pig Pen” stepped into the left-handed batters box to hit pinch-hit for Twins catcher Tim Laudner who was hitting in the 7-hole on that day. Right-hander Donn Pall was the third pitcher used by the mighty whitey’s that inning and he gave up the grand salami to Jim Dwyer and the Twins were up 7-2 and would eventually win the game by a score of 10-3 as Frank Viola won his 22nd game of the season. No one has pinch-hit a grand slam home run for the Twins since September 15, 1988.
ERROR, ERROR, RECOMPUTE: A bit of a technical glitch with my search, it turns out that the last player to pinch-hit a home run for the Twins was not Jim Dwyer but our old friend Matt LeCroy in 2004. Here is the corrected list.
Chance holds Chicago scoreless in the top of the seventh while the Twins finally put a 1 on the board with a home run by Harmon Killebrew, his 12 of the month and 22 of the season. Chance finishes the shutout for his 10th win and Horlen is lifted for a pinch-hitter after 8 innings and Bobby Locker finishes up. Just one hour and 58 minutes after the game started Dean Chance retires Pete Ward for the 27th out and the game goes in the books as a 1-0 Twins win. The Twins pick up a game in the standings but still find themselves looking up at the Red Sox, Tigers and White Sox. Box Score
