Tag: Gary Gaetti

Home run combo’s

A couple of days ago it was reported that the Detroit Tigers have reached an agreement with free agent 1B Prince Fielder on a 9 year $214 million deal. This deal took place just a couple of days after the Tigers reported they may have lost C/1B/DH Victor Martinez for the season due to a torn ACL. Martinez only hit 12 home runs for Detroit last year but he knocked in 100 runs and he hit .330 while Miguel Cabrera hit .344 with 30 home runs while knocking in 108. The top two home run hitters for the Tigers were Cabrera with 31 and SS Jhonny Peralta who hit 21 long balls. Fielder, playing with the Milwaukee Brewers last season hit 38 while teammate Ryan Braun hit 33 for a total of 71 long balls between them. The big question is how do you keep both of these first baseman in the line-up, Cabrera has already been reported as saying that he can move to 3B but having Fielder at 1B and Cabrera at 3B seems like a real stretch, teams would be bunting left and right. Sure one of these guys can DH but both Fielder and Cabrera are over weight and playing in the field helps to control that to some degree, have one sitting on the bench can’t be a good thing. A home run combo like Cabrera and Fielder made me wonder what kind of power combinations the Twins have fielded over the years. Here is what I found.

Rank Year # Home Runs Player Player
1 1964 81 Killebrew – 49 Allison/Oliva – 32
2 1963 80 Killebrew – 45 Allison – 35
3 1962 77 Killebrew – 48 Allison – 29
4 1961 75 Killebrew – 46 Allison – 29
5 1969 73 Killebrew – 49 Oliva – 24
6 1967 68 Killebrew – 44 Allison – 24
7 1986 65 Gaetti – 34 Hrbek – 31
7 1987 65 Hrbek – 34 Gaetti – 31
7 2006 65 Morneau – 34 Hunter – 31
8 1966 64 Killebrew – 39 Oliva – 25
8 1970 64 Killebrew – 41 Oliva – 23
9 2009 62 Cuddyer – 32 Morneau – 30
10 1984 59 Brunansky – 32 Hrbek – 27
10 2007 59 Morneau – 31 Hunter – 28

 

Twins opening day tidbits

March 31, 2011 – I thought that it would be fun to look over the Twins 50 year history of Opening Days and see who has started the most games at each position. Through their first fifty years, the Twins record on Opening Day is 24-26 and they are currently on a two game losing streak.

The Minnesota Twins first Opening Day was at Yankee Stadium on April 11, 1961 in front of only 14,607 fans and the Twins played and won their first ever game by a score of 6-0. Their Opening Day line-up that day had Earl Battey catching, Harmon Killebrew at first, Billy Gardner at second, Zoilo Versalles was at short, Reno Bertoia played third, Jim Lemon was in left, Lenny Green was in center, Bob Allison was in right, and Pedro Ramos was the starting pitcher. Little did anyone know at the time that the Twins second baseman that day, Billy Gardner, would become the Twins manager twenty years later. The Twins have only fielded the same opening day line-up from one year to the next on one occasion in 50 years and that was in 1970 (won 12-0) and 1971 (lost 7-2) when the Twins had George Mitterwald catching, Rich Reese at first, Rod Carew at second, Leo Cardenas was at short, Harmon Killebrew was at third, Brant Alyea was in left, Cesar Tovar was the centerfielder, Tony Oliva was in right and Jim Perry was the starting pitcher. This goes to show how much things change from year to year.

I told you earlier that I was going to find out what Twins have started the most Opening Day games by position and here is what I have found.

  Total # of players that have played this position on opening day Started most opening days at this position
Catcher 20 Earl Battey, Butch Wynegar, Joe Mauer – 6
1B 19 Kent Hrbek – 12
2B 20 Rod Carew – 9
SS 16 Zoilo Versalles, Roy Smalley, Greg Gagne – 7
3B 23 Gary Gaetti – 9
LF 25 Mickey Hatcher, Dan Gladden, Marty Cordova, Jacques Jones – 4
CF 20 Torii Hunter – 9
RF 19 Tony Oliva – 8
DH 25 Paul Molitor, Randy Bush, Glenn Adams – 3
P 25 Brad Radke – 9

 

Most games played by position in franchise history

Native Minnesotan Kent Hrbek

July 31, 2010 – I just wanted to take a look and see who the leaders for games played at each position by the Minnesota Twins and the Washington Senators. With the way things are in baseball today and players on the move through free agency it is hard to keep the same players for any length of time. The only current player that might have a shot at moving on to the list below in the near future is Joe Mauer and if all goes well that might happen late in 2011 or early 2012.

Position Games Name Games Name
Catcher 831 Earl Battey 874 Muddy Ruel
1B 1,609 Kent Hrbek 2,025 Joe Judge
2B 1,128 Rod Carew 1,339 Buddy Myer
SS 1,112 Greg Gagne 1,445 George McBride
3B 1,311 Gary Gaetti 1,625 Eddie Yost
LF 620 Dan Gladden 1,093 Goose Goslin
CF 1,432 Kirby Puckett 1,635 Clyde Milan
RF 1,138 Tony Oliva 1,592 Sam Rice
DH 406 Tony Oliva — —

 

Most Games Played in a Twins Uniform

Rank Name Games played Plate appearances
1 Harmon Killebrew 2,329 9,462
2 Kirby Puckett 1,783 7,831
3 Kent Hrbek 1,747 7,137
4 Tony Oliva 1,676 6,879
5 Rod Carew 1,635 6,980
6 Bob Allison 1,541 5,921
7 Gary Gaetti 1,361 5,459
8 Torii Hunter 1,234 4,894
9 Randy Bush 1,219 3,480
10 Roy Smalley 1,148 4,675

 

Luke Hughes homers in his first ML at bat

 

Luke Hughes (courtesy of MLB Photos)

April 29, 2010 – Luke Hughes hit a home run in his first major league at bat and in the process became the fifth Minnesota Twin to accomplish this feat. Hughes hit his home run to right field off Detroit Tiger starter Max Scherzer on a 2-2 count as he lead off the third inning. Actually Hughes was batting in the second inning when Delmon Young was caught stealing third base for the final out of the second inning so that at bat did not count. Hughes, who was born in Perth, Australia, is the eighth Aussie to hit a homer in the major leagues and the first to do so in his first at-bat in the bigs. Unfortunately for Hughes and the Twins, they lost the game to the Tigers by an 11-6 score.

A complete list of Twins to hit a home run in either their first at bat or their first major league game are listed below. Hal Haydel is the only pitcher in the group. Oddly enough, no Twins rookie ever accomplished this feat at the Metrodome.

Player Date At Bat Count Opponent Pitcher
Luke Hughes 4-28-2010 1 2-2 in Detroit Max Scherzer
Andre David 6-29-1984 1 1-2 in Detroit Jack Morris
Gary Gaetti 9-20-1981 1 1-1 in Texas Charlie Hough
Tim Laudner 8-28-1981 3 0-1 Detroit @ Met Stadium Dave Rozema
Kent Hrbek 8-24-1981 5 2-2 in New York George Frazier
Dave McKay 8-22-1975 1 1-1 Detroit @ Met Stadium Vern Ruhle
Eric Soderholm 9-3-1971 2 1-1 Oakland @ Met Stadium Diego Segui
Hal Haydel 9-7-1970 2 0-0 Milwaukee @ Met Stadium Al Downing
Rick Renick 7-11-1968 1 3-1 Detroit @ Met Stadium Mickey Lolich

 

Twins Home Run Leaders by Position

 

October 21, 2009 – I thought that it would be fun to take a look back over the Twins history just to see who the Twins leaders are in home runs at each position. Some of the numbers that I found from the Twins 49 seasons in Minnesota were really a surprise to me and I have followed the Twins since their inception in 1961.

POSITION PLAYER HOME RUNS AT BATS PER HOME RUN
Catcher Tim Laudner 77 26.46
1B Kent Hrbek 293 21.13
2B Rod Carew 46 96.74
SS Zoilo Versalles 86 48.23
3B Gary Gaetti 201 24.82
OF Kirby Puckett 207 35.00
DH Matt LeCroy 53 21.40
P Jim Kaat 14 71.00

You have to be thinking, this can’t be right, where is Twins all-time home run slugger Harmon Killebrew? But when you look at the numbers you will see that Harmon played 14 seasons with the Twins but he split his time playing four positions, he played 881 games at 1B, 481 games at 3B, 455 games in the OF, and 122 games as a DH. Killebrew smashed 191 home runs as a first baseman, 142 as an outfielder, 129 while playing the hot corner, and 13 more when he was the DH. The Twins currently have some players on the roster like Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel, and Joe Mauer that could be slugging their way on to this list very soon.

When you look at the Washington Sentaors/Nationals numbers from 1901 to 1960 to get a franchise perspective you see how much different baseball is today from its earlier years. I think the one interesting number that jumped out at me here was Roy Sievers and the fact that he hit a home run in every 16.95 at bats when he played the outfield.It is always fun to look at historical numbers and to do comparisons.

POSITION PLAYER HOME RUNS AT BATS PER HOME RUN
Catcher Jake Early 29 68.76
1B Mickey Vernon 121 57.27
2B Buddy Myer 34 162.94
SS Joe Cronin 51 70.24
3B Eddie Yost 101 59.51
OF Roy Sievers 159 16.95
DH – – –
P Walter Johnson 24 96.83