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
Baseball was fun to watch at Metropolitan Stadium from 1961-1981 and a lot of MLB and Minnesota Twins “greats” played there. Here is a short list of some of the Twins leaders in some hitting and pitching categories. Keep in mind these are stats accumulated only while playing at Met Stadium.
Games played – Harmon Killebrew-963, Tony Oliva-842, Rod Carew-817
Hits – Rod Carew-1,046, Tony Oliva-935, Harmon Killebrew-844
In baseball, a switch hitter is a player who bats both right-handed and left-handed, usually right-handed against left-handed pitchers and left-handed against right-handed pitchers, although there are some exceptions. Is it beneficial to be a switch hitter? Left-handed batters get a better jump out of the batter’s box to first base. This means the left-handed batter will get more infield hits. Hitting the ball to the first base side of the field has many built-in advantages for his team (such as hitting behind the runner), so he becomes a more valuable hitter.
If you look at position players only, then about 13% are switch hitters, 54% right-handed and 33% left-handed hitters. I believe that at last count there have been 20 switch hitters elected into the Hall of Fame. Many consider Mickey Mantle the greatest switch hitter of all time while others might tell you that it was Pete Rose but that is a whole different story. The switch hitter in the HOF with the most hits is Eddie Murray and the only HOF switch hitting player with more home runs than Murray (504) is Mickey Mantle with 536. So a case can certainly be made for Eddie Murray being the best switch hitter in MLB history.
Read more: Twins Switch HittersThe Minnesota Twins have had their fair share of switch hitters over the years. Who was their best switch hitter? That would depend on what you are looking for in a hitter but you have to start with Roy Smalley. Up until this past season Roy Smalley led Twins switch hitters with 110 career home runs in a Twins uniform but this past season in 2023 Jorge Polanco took over the team lead in switch hitter home runs with 112. Lets take a look at the Twins switch hitters from 1961 to 2023 at https://stathead.com/tiny/hYPg4. The list shows us the Twins have had 77 switch hitters (both position players and pitchers) over the years but only 68 of them had a plate appearance and 66 of them had at least one hit while 44 of them slugged at least one home run.
Cy Young winner Jim Perry was the Twins best switch hitting pitcher hitting 5 home runs and getting 46 RBI with 117 hits and hitting .191 in 613 AB’s over 380 games in his Twins career. Pitcher Pedro Ramos was no slouch with the stick for Minnesota as he hit three home runs in his one season (1961) pitching for Minnesota in just 93 AB’s. Ramos was the Minnesota Twins very first switch hitter to appear in a game and get a hit with two RBI off future Hall of Famer Whitey Ford when he batted on Opening Day in 1961 at Yankee Stadium. He also became the first Twins switch hitter to hit a home run when he hit one out on May 12 at Met Stadium against the Los Angeles Angels pitcher Eli Grba in a 5-4 Twins victory.
I have written some previous articles about Twins switch hitters that you can check out at Twins switch-hitters and Twins switch-hitters from 1961-2015
The Minnesota Twins have played baseball for 62 seasons and they have had 273 different pitchers start one or more games for them. The number drops to 26 pitchers having started 100 or more games, just six having started 200 or more, three at 300 or more and only Jim Kaat started over 400 or 422 to be exact.
Pitching has not exactly been the Twins strength over the years, the team has been known for producing hitters. But the Twins have had a number of very good pitchers with Bert Blyleven and Jim Kaat in the MLB Hall of Fame. The Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame includes pitchers Blyleven, Kaat, Frank Viola, Rick Aguilera, Brad Radke, Jim Perry, Camilo Pascual, Eddie Guardado, Johan Santana and Joe Nathan. Three of the inductee’s were relievers.
Back on December 19 in 2006 pitcher Brad Radke announced his plans to retire after 12 season of wearing the colors of the Minnesota Twins. That got me to wondering where the Twins pitchers with the most starts for Minnesota came from.
The other players with 150 or more starts for Minnesota are Eric Milton with 165, Scott Baker with 159, Scott Erickson with 153, Kyle Lohse with 152 and Dave Boswell with 150.
The only pitchers mentioned here today to make a start for the Minnesota Twins at Target Field are Kyle Gibson and Scott Baker.
The only pitcher on this list to spend his entire career in Minnesota? That would be Brad Radke.
As you watch the 2021 MLB Opening Day games tomorrow one of the things that you are unlikely to see is a complete game win by a starting pitcher. Back in the day, it was normal to see starting pitchers throw complete games in their final one or two spring training exhibition starts and complete games on OD were a normal occurrence. Not so in todays baseball.
Last year Chicago Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks pitched a complete game throwing 103 pitches as he shutout the Milwaukee Brewers 3-0 on July 24. It was the first complete game on OD (not counting a five inning effort by Gerrit Cole in 2020) since April 1, 2013 when Clayton Kershaw shutout the San Francisco Giants 4-0. The last complete game on OD in the American League goes back even farther, back to April 1, 2011 when Felix Hernandez got a CG 6-2 win against the Oakland A’s. The last pitcher to pitch a complete game against the Twins was Rick Rhoden when he was pitching for the New York Yankees on April 5, 1988 after the Minnesota Twins won the 1987 World Series.
The Minnesota Twins OD complete games are documented below.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s it was not unusual to see the opening day pitcher pitch a complete game. Twins pitchers did it three times in the 60’s including in 1961 when they played their first game against the New York Yankees and Pedro Ramos went the distance in the 6-0 Twins win and again three more times in the 70’s. The last pitcher to pitch a complete game on opening day for Minnesota was Dave Goltz in 1978 but he lost to the Mariners that day in a 3-2 game.
Regardless if you believe in Quality Starts (QS) or not, the term is used now days in MLB. A QS is defined as pitching six innings or more while allowing three or fewer earned runs. I would be happier if a QS was seven innings and two or fewer earned runs but that is just my age showing. The new “opener” strategy could put a kink in QS but I don’t think the opener strategy is a fit for most teams and will not be a big deal down the line.
Today we are taking a look at consecutive QS for Minnesota Twins starters and we have one pitcher that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Twins pitchers in QS and that is Johan Santana who had 21 QS in a row in 2004. Impressive or not? You bet your bippy it is, no American League pitcher between 1961-2018 has thrown that many QS in a row. In the National league only four pitchers have thrown that many QS in a row since 1961, Bob Gibson leads with 26 in 1967, Jacob deGrom (2018) and Jake Arrieta (2015) have 24 and Chris Carpenter has 22 in 2005.
The closest to Santana’s streak of 21 in Minnesota is Bert Blyleven who had 12 in 1972 and Jim Merritt who also had 12 in 1967. The biggest surprise on this list to me is Rick Aguilera with 10 QS in 1989. I certainly remember Aggie starting for Minnesota when they first traded for him but I don’t remember him as pitching that well, maybe it was the fact that his record was only 3-4 during the streak.
| Rk | Name | Strk Start | End | Games | W | L | GS | CG | SHO | IP | H | ER | BB | SO | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johan Santana | 2004-06-09 | 2004-09-24 | 21 | 18 | 2 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 154.1 | 77 | 23 | 30 | 199 | 1.34 |
| 2 | Bert Blyleven | 1972-08-19 | 1973-04-06 | 12 | 8 | 3 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 99.0 | 82 | 19 | 24 | 87 | 1.73 |
| 3 | Jim Merritt | 1967-06-25 | 1967-08-18 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 101.1 | 77 | 18 | 8 | 64 | 1.60 |
| 4 | Frank Viola | 1987-06-26 | 1987-08-16 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 11 | 4 | 1 | 87.0 | 69 | 19 | 21 | 70 | 1.97 |
| 5 | Dick Woodson | 1972-07-11 | 1972-08-28 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 90.1 | 61 | 14 | 26 | 43 | 1.39 |
| 6 | Eric Milton | 2000-09-23 | 2001-05-13 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 68.1 | 67 | 20 | 16 | 45 | 2.63 |
| 7 | Scott Erickson | 1990-09-23 | 1991-05-17 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 10 | 3 | 2 | 77.1 | 53 | 10 | 28 | 36 | 1.16 |
| 8 | Rick Aguilera | 1989-08-08 | 1989-09-26 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 71.2 | 61 | 22 | 16 | 55 | 2.76 |
| 9 | Roger Erickson | 1980-08-01 | 1980-09-17 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 80.0 | 71 | 18 | 16 | 42 | 2.03 |
| 10 | Lee Stange | 1963-08-06 | 1963-09-15 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 83.0 | 65 | 16 | 19 | 55 | 1.73 |
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The Minnesota Twins longest streak of QS as a team is 13 QS in a row in 1969. The pitchers in that streak were Dean Chance, Dave Boswell, Jim Perry, Dick Woodson, Tommy Hall and Jim Kaat.
The Minnesota Twins started play in 1961 after moving from Washington D.C. where they were known as the Washington Senators. In their final year as the Senators in 1960 the team had a 73-81 record. Between 1946 and 1960 they had one, just one, winning season and that was in 1952 when they barely made it over the .500 mark with a 78-76 record.
Nevertheless the baseball fans of Minnesota were excited about getting a major league team (some might disagree with that description) to move to their state. Team owner Calvin Griffith felt he had some good young players that were just starting to make their mark.
The 1961 team was managed by Cookie Lavagetto until he was fired by Griffith after a 23-36 start and replaced by coach Sam Mele. The team went on to finish seventh in the ten team American League with a 70-90 mark and 38 games out of first place. The team won 91 games in both 1962 and 1963 but in 1964 they fell back to a 79-83 record and fans were calling for manager Mele to hit the road. However; Griffith stuck with his man and in 1965 Mele’s Twins won 102 games and found themselves in the World Series playing the Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale led Los Angeles Dodgers. The Twins came out on the short end of that Series losing four games to three but baseball was exciting in Minnesota.
The 1966 Twins were not able to defend their 1965 pennant and finished with a 89 win season but they were nine games behind the Baltimore Orioles. The 1967 season saw the American League with a pennant race like none before it with the Red Sox, Twins, Tigers, White Sox and Angels battling down to the very end of the season. The Twins started the season at just 25-25 and that was not what the Twins owner was expecting so he fired Mele and brought Cal Ermer to lead his team. The team responded to Ermer and had a one game lead with two games to play with the Red Sox at Fenway Park and they lost both games allowing the Red Sox to win the 1967 AL pennant by one game over Minnesota and Detroit, three games over the White Sox and 7.5 games over the Angels.
The Twins started the 1968 season with six straight wins, five of them on the road but that was their high-water mark for the season and when the season ended so did the managing career of Cal Ermer. Less than two weeks later Calvin Griffith hired Billy Martin as his new manager.
1969 saw the AL break in two divisions with the Twins being part of the six team AL West along with the Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox, California Angels, Seattle Pilots, and the Kansas City Royals. 1969 was also the first season that had a best of five ALCS. In this case the West Division winning Twins played the East Division winning Baltimore Orioles and the Twins lost all three games. They lost the first game in Baltimore in 12 innings 4 to 3, the lost game two again in Baltimore in 11 innings 1 to 0 and their third and final game was a blowout 11-2 loss at the Met when Billy Martin went on a hunch and started Bob Miller, a part-time starter/reliever and he lasted just 1.2 innings. Martin’s decision to start Miller turned out to be one of the key reasons he would be fired by Griffith after just one season.
The Twins played winning baseball (.542) in the 60’s and had a record of 789-666. So who were the key Twins hitters and pitchers in the Twins first decade of baseball in the Minnesota? It is difficult to determine the value that a player brings to the team without being arbitrary so the best way that I know of to measure a players worth is WAR. I know of lot of you either don’t like it and don’t know how it is calculated exactly (either do I), but if we apply the same measurement to everyone it will serve our purpose here. The position player with the highest WAR for the period of 1961-1969 probably is no surprise to anyone, it is Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew and the pitcher for that same time period is Jim Kaat.
Today we are going to look at the Twins starting pitchers that went to the mound to pitch and they didn’t let pitch counts and innings pitched stop them. Here we have a list of Twins starting pitchers that started a game and pitched a minimum of 11 innings, Jim Merritt is the top man on the list and will probably remain there forever.
Since 1961 starting pitchers have stayed in a game 11 or more innings on 430 occasions but the last pitcher to do so was Dave Stewart who went 11 very efficient innings throwing just 129 pitches in his start and complete game 1-0 shutout of the Seattle Mariners in August 1, 1990. Can it happen again? Sure, but the chances are slim to none with today’s coddled and pampered pitchers.
| Rk | Player | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | App,Dec | IP | H | R | ER | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jim Merritt | 1967-07-26 (2) | MIN | NYY | W 3-2 | GS-13 | 13.0 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| 2 | Camilo Pascual | 1963-07-23 | MIN | CLE | L 2-3 | CG(13), L | 12.2 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 11 |
| 3 | Dave Boswell | 1969-07-14 | MIN | CHW | W 4-3 | GS-12 | 12.0 | 10 | 3 | 2 | 7 |
| 4 | Jim Kaat | 1969-05-20 | MIN | BAL | W 3-2 | GS-13, W | 12.0 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| 5 | Camilo Pascual | 1964-10-01 | MIN | KCA | L 4-5 | CG(12), L | 12.0 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 14 |
| 6 | Jim Roland | 1964-05-19 | MIN | NYY | W 7-2 | GS-12, W | 12.0 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| 7 | Camilo Pascual | 1962-09-12 | MIN | CHW | L 1-2 | CG(12), L | 12.0 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| 8 | Dave Goltz | 1977-07-25 | MIN | OAK | W 2-1 | CG(11), W | 11.0 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 14 |
| 9 | Bill Singer | 1976-09-01 | MIN | MIL | W 3-2 | GS-11 | 11.0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 10 | Dave Goltz | 1976-05-18 | MIN | OAK | W 4-3 | CG(11), W | 11.0 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 7 |
| 11 | Bert Blyleven | 1975-08-27 | MIN | MIL | W 1-0 | SHO(11), W | 11.0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 13 |
| 12 | Jim Kaat | 1973-06-23 | MIN | CAL | L 1-3 | CG(11), L | 11.0 | 11 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 13 | Jim Kaat | 1972-05-24 | MIN | KCR | W 1-0 | GS-11, W | 11.0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| 14 | Jim Perry | 1970-08-07 | MIN | OAK | W 2-1 | CG(11), W | 11.0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| 15 | Jim Kaat | 1969-04-09 | MIN | KCR | L 3-4 | GS-12 | 11.0 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| 16 | Jim Kaat | 1964-04-26 | MIN | DET | W 3-2 | CG(11), W | 11.0 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| 17 | Jim Kaat | 1962-08-01 | MIN | BAL | W 3-1 | CG(11), W | 11.0 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 12 |
| 18 | Pedro Ramos | 1961-04-28 | MIN | LAA | L 5-6 | GS-11 | 11.0 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 10 |
Jim Kaat did it six times while wearing a Twins uniform and the all-time leader in these kinds of starts since 1961 is Gaylord Perry with 17 starts of 11 innings or more. Bill Singer (1973), Mickey Lolich (1971) and Mark Fidrych (1976) each did it four times in a single season.
The Minnesota Twins had a pretty good team back in 1970, good enough to win 98 games and finish first in the AL West under skipper Bill Rigney. The team was either in first or second place all year long and was never more than a game out of the lead. The Twins were beaten (pretty badly) three games to none in the ALCS against the Baltimore Orioles for the second year in a row.
The Twins top pitcher was Jim Perry who led the league with 40 starts completing 13 of them and won a league leading 24 games which earned him the American League Cy Young award after the season ended. In addition to the above pitchers, only two other Twins pitchers started games that season, Bill Zepp and Tommy Hall. The Twins pitching ranked second in 1970.
