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 Twins announced four new coaches to manager Rocco Baldelli‘s staff yesterday, as they hired Wes Johnson (pitching coach), Jeremy Hefner (bullpen coach), Tony Diaz (third-base coach) and Tommy Watkins (first-base coach). The Twins had retained hitting coach James Rowson, assistant hitting coach Rudy Hernandez and bench coach Derek Shelton.
I thought that with all the attention this year on the length of games that it would be fun to take a look at some of the quickest nine inning games in Twins history in terms of wall clock time. The fastest game turned out to be a Twins 3-0 loss at Exhibition Stadium to the Toronto Blue Jays as starter Jim Clancy and his Twins counterpart Frank Viola faced off.
| Rk | Date | Opp | Rslt | PA | AB | Attendance | GmLen ? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1982-09-28 (1) | TOR | L 0-3 | 28 | 27 | 0 | 93 |
| 2 | 1973-07-01 | CAL | W 2-1 | 32 | 31 | 27,068 | 100 |
| 2 | 1968-09-13 | BOS | L 0-3 | 31 | 31 | 23,171 | 100 |
| 4 | 1968-08-22 | NYY | W 3-1 | 31 | 26 | 15,898 | 102 |
| 5 | 1979-08-12 | OAK | W 1-0 | 30 | 27 | 14,500 | 103 |
| 5 | 1974-06-17 | BAL | L 0-1 | 31 | 29 | 7,157 | 103 |
| 7 | 1975-09-26 | CHW | W 2-1 | 33 | 29 | 2,769 | 105 |
| 7 | 1966-04-12 | KCA | W 2-1 | 29 | 26 | 21,658 | 105 |
The fastest Twins nine inning game in this century you ask? That would be a 1-0 loss to the Oakland A’s in McAfee Park on June 2, 2007 when Joe Blanton beat Carlos Silva in one hour and 49 minutes. Since the 2000 season began, the Twins have played in only nine complete games that lasted two hours or less.
The Twins longest game in terms of time was a 17 inning six-hour and 36 minute affair back on May 7, 1995 when the Indians beat the Twins 10-9 at Jacob’s Field. I suspect that the 39,431 fans at the ballpark got their money’s worth that day. I wonder what Tom Kelly’s temperament was like after that game? The Twins used nine pitchers and the Indians used eight. Oddly enough, the Twins have played only two games that lasted six or more hours and they were both against the Cleveland Indians. The other long game against the boys from Cleveland was a six-hour and 17 minute affair at the Metrodome but this time the Twins came out with a 5-4 win in 22 innings on August 31, 1993.
I also took a look at the length of an average Twins game in 1961 versus an average Twins game in 2014. Back in the Twins initial season an average Twins game took two hours and 40 minutes, last year an average Twins game took three hours and 7 minutes.
The Twins defeated the Angels, 4-3, as Joe Blanton took another loss. Blanton, who allowed all four Minnesota runs and nine hits in just 3 2/3 innings, fell to 2-13 (.154), the second-lowest winning percentage among the 113 big-leaguers with at least 10 decisions this season. Shaun Marcum recently took a 1-10 (.091) record with him to the Mets disabled list. Blanton gave up a fourth-inning home run to Clete Thomas on Monday night, the 10th straight game in which Blanton has surrendered a home run. Last season, while pitching for the Phillies, Blanton allowed a home run in each of 11 consecutive games. He is only the second pitcher in major-league history to have a double-digit streak of games allowing home runs in each of two consecutive seasons; he joins Hall-of-Famer Bert Blyleven, who endured home-runs-allowed streaks of 11 games in 1986 and of 14 games in 1987, while with the Twins.
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J.J. Hardy‘s 17th home run of the season capped a four-run sixth inning that propelled the Orioles to a 9-2 victory at Kansas City. The American League’s starting All-Star shortstop has hit 69 home runs, all while playing as a shortstop, in his three seasons with Baltimore, by far the most by any big-league shortstop over that span. (Troy Tulowitzki stands at distant second, with 55.) Hardy’s homers have maintained the Orioles’ power-hitting tradition at that position. Since 1982 (Cal Ripken Jr.’s first season as the team’s regular shortstop), Orioles shortstops have hit a total of 622 home runs, by far the most for any major-league team’s shortstops; second place belongs to the Brewers, with 460 homers from their shortstops – 75 of which were hit by Hardy from 2005 to 2009!
Seriously? We traded Hardy and Brendan Harris to Baltimore for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson? Goes down in the annals as one of the Twins worst trades in history. Aargh!
It has been awhile since my last post but web site hosting issues have caused me a lot of extra work and taken me away from more fun activities like keeping up with the MLB Winter meetings and the changing Twins roster.
With the recent trades of former first round pick (2002) outfielder Denard Span to the Washington Nationals for 2011 Nats first round pick RHP Alex Meyer and just a few days later sending another former Twins first round pick (2007) outfielder Ben Revere to the Phillies for RHP’s Vance Worley and Trevor May the Twins and GM Terry Ryan have held true to their word that changes were coming and that they were going to snag as many pitchers as they could. These trades should also clear up any confusion that some Twins fans may still have had that the Twins were going to be “reload” and try to become a playoff team once again after suffering through two dismal seasons. The Twins are in a full-scale rebuilding mode but not the kind of rebuilding mode that we may have seen from the Twins in the past. In the past they would get rid of all their high salaried players and start from scratch but that is a much harder sell now days with the Twins just having moved into their new digs at Target Field in 2010. The Twins aren’t stupid, they know they can’t afford to totally alienate their fan base that they have built up with a with a new ballpark and a nice run since 2002 but they also know that they let their starting pitching fall into disrepair the last few years and in the process have lost 90+ games two years in a row. The team grew stale, changes were few and far between on the player, coaching and management sides and their “smoke and mirrors” approach to their pitching staff caught up with the team so quickly it seemed to catch the entire Twins organization off guard.
The Twins are not a huge market team but they can not plead poverty as they have in the past. The team has a decent fan base, a relatively new ballpark and ownership that has money to spend but I am not sure that they are willing to spend it. The Twins like to brag that they are one of the top organizations in baseball but when it comes to taking out their wallet to bring in some high-priced talent the team claims it is not all about the money. I understand if they can’t put Zack Greinke in a Twins uniform but I can’t get a handle on why you can’t get Joe Blanton for example if the Angels can get him for 2 years for $15 million. This team has just two starting pitchers going into 2013 and I surely don’t grasp why the team would supposedly make an offer to Francisco Liriano after his history with the team between 2005-2012. I think Terry Ryan is a very good GM but I sure don’t know what his logic is for this move. At least throw us a bone Mr. Pohlad, give us some new blood and something to at least give us some hope instead of having us pay to watch that same old crap. I understand loyalty but you can only keep hitting your head against the same old wall for so long before someone shows up to haul you away in a white coat. Show us some loyalty and a reason why we should pay big league prices to watch the Twins in 2013.
This Twins team has more holes than my fishing net but I still love baseball and every year teams come for nowhere to play winning baseball and I can only hope that the Twins will do so sooner than later. There are still serviceable pitchers out there on the FA market and I hope that Jim Pohlad lets Dave St. Peter and Terry Ryan know that his checkbook is there and he is willing to carack it open long enough to sign at least one if not two more starting pitchers. It all starts at the top. The recent splash the Twins have made in the trade market should be just the beginning of what the Twins need to do to become competitive again and not the final chapter.
Josh Hamilton is still a free agent and if Texas doesn’t resign him they could use a power hitting outfielder and if I were the Twins I would be happy to send Josh Willingham to Texas for a shortstop like Jurickson Barthelomeus Profar that could fill that shortstop hole at Target Field for many years to come. The Twins recently announced that they had signed 35-year-old pitcher Jason Lane who played the outfield for the Astros and Padres from 2002-2007 and turned to pitching in 2009. The team also signed 1B/C Jeff Clement who has played in the big leagues with the Mariner and the Pirates for parts of 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012 and hit .218 in 385 at bats. Why in %#@* do you spend the money on players like this? You don’t win with quantity, you win with quality, I am not sure the Twins look at it that way.
In the recent major league portion of the Rule 5 draft the Twins selected 23 year-old RHP Ryan Pressly from the Boston Red Sox. After starting since 2008 Pressly was turned into a reliever late in 2012 and pitched well in that role in the AFL over the last month or so.
It is still early in December and the 2013 season is several months away but the Twins brain trust needs to keep their nose to the grindstone if this team is going to break their two-year death grip on last place. If I was Ron Gardenhire, the way things looks right now, I would be signing on to the PC and updating my resume.