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
Nelson Cruz hit a pair of home runs in the Mariners’ 4-3 win as they handed the Twins their 100th loss of the season yeserday. Brian Dozier‘s 42 home runs are the most in one season by any player in major-league history for a team that lost at least 100 games. The only other 100-loss teams that boasted a player with at least 40 home runs were the 1923 Phillies (50-104, Cy Williams, 41 HR), 1930 Phillies (52-102, Chuck Klein, 40) and 1977 Braves (61-101, Jeff Burroughs, 41).
Brian Dozier hit his 40th home run of the season in the Twins 4-2 loss to the Tigers last night at Comerica Park. Dozier could become the eighth player to hit 40 homers in a season for a team that won less than 40 percent of its games. The last player to do that was Jeff Burroughs, who hit 41 long balls in 1977 for the Braves, who finished 61-101 (.377).
By the way, the following has nothing to do with Brian Dozier but it is still a fun read over at D.C. Baseball History. Maybe it could have happened here, after all, Minnesota ladies do love Brian Dozier.
Steve Luebber‘s Twins pitching career was relatively short, just 58 games with 24 starts in parts of three seasons (71, 72, and 76). But on this day Luebber felt confident, he was facing the Rangers for the second time in a two-week period and he was coming off of a complete game shutout of the Oakland A’s. After 6 perfect innings, Luebber had faced 18 batters and retired everyone one of them and the Twins had staked him to a 3-0 lead. In the 7th the Rangers loaded the bases with 2 walks and an error but Luebber buckled down and retired Toby Harrah for the final out of the inning and the no-hitter was still in play. Luebber retired the Rangers 1-2-3 in the 8th inning and went on to retire the first two batters in the ninth inning and was one batter away from a no-no. Roy Howell was the Texas batter and Lubber had him 2-2 and threw what he thought was strike 3 but umpire Art Frantz didn’t see it that way and the count went full. Luebber tried a fastball again but this time Howell hit a sharp single to center and the normally slick fielding Lyman Bostock let the ball get past him and Howell ended up on third base. The next batter, Mike Hargrove followed with a single and Howell scored and Luebber had lost both his no-hitter and the shutout. At this point manager Gene Mauch had seen enough and brought in reliever Bill Campbell who struck out Jeff Burroughs to end the game, preserve the victory for Luebber and the Twins were 3-1 winners in Arlington Stadium.
Luebber is and has been the pitching coach for the Wilmington Blue Rocks since 2007. Wilmington is an “A” ball affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. He has also coached in the Padres, Orioles, Rangers and Marlins organizations.
Although several Twins pitchers have come close on a couple of occasions the Twins still have not had one of their pitchers throw a perfect game.
The Twins announced that they have signed free agents 3B Sean Burroughs and catcher Rene Rivera to minor league deals and gave both spring training invites. Rene Rivera is someone we are all familiar with as he was with the Twins this past season as part of the catching group that tried to cover the games that Joe Mauer was not able to play. Rivera played in 35 games and had 15 hits in 104 at bats giving him a .144 batting average. Rivera is only in camp because there are lots of pitchers that need to be caught and he has zero chance of making the Twins team in 2012 unless of course Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit coming up missing between now and February.
Sean Burroughs
The signing of 3B Sean Burroughs, 31, is kind of interesting and his baseball career has had some twists and turns. Let’s us go back to the beginning, Sean is the son of former 1974 AL MVP Jeff Burroughs and he was the star of the Long Beach Little league team that won back-to-back world championships in 1992 and 1993 with his Dad as the coach. Sean was selected 9th overall in 1998 by the San Diego Padres out of high school. San Diego was able to convince Burroughs to forego a scholarship to USC and sign with the club. When the Padres completed spring training in 2002, Sean Burroughs was their starting 3B. Although Burroughs hit for average he did not display the kind of power hat everyone usually expects out of the 3B position. After 4 years in San Diego Burroughs had hit just 11 home runs. After the 2005 season Burroughs was traded to Tampa Bay but they released him in August of 2006. Burroughs then signed on with the Seattle Mariners but he never made the big league club and by June he was released and out of baseball. Substance abuse was taking its toll on Sean Burroughs and he found himself in Las Vegas staying in the cheapest hotels he could find and now and then having to eat out of garbage cans. Luckily, Burroughs was able to straighten out his life, regain sobriety and sign a contract with the Arizona D-Backs in November in 2010 and by May 19, 2011 a little over 5 years since his last big league at bat, Sean Burroughs was back playing major league baseball.
Burroughs is a left-handed hitter and stand 6’2″ and goes about 180 lbs. It would be nice to see Sean Burroughs continue to rise from the depths of desperation by becoming an All-Star player in Minnesota but we need to be realistic here. The man is 31 years old and was out of baseball for over 5 years before signing with Arizona last season. The Twins have signed Burroughs to push Danny Valencia a bit and if worse comes to worse, Burroughs might be the guy that the Twins can plug in at 3B for a time. Sure, nuggets are sometimes found but more often than not, there are reasons why players like Burroughs are not stars. But it is fun to wish and to hope, particularly during the holiday season but I think we have to look at Burroughs as insurance, we all hate to pay for insurance but we all need to have it because you never know when you will need. Didn’t Yogi Berra say that? You can’t help but root for someone who is working to get his life back and I wish him the best and if he can help the Twins, so much the better.
