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 powered up against Matt Garza and company, slamming five home runs in their 11–4 victory over the Brewers. Max Kepler and Eddie Rosario, who each homered twice for Minnesota, became the first Twins duo in just over six years to hit multiple homers in the same game. Michael Cuddyer and Delmon Young each hit a pair of four-baggers for Minnesota on August 3, 2011 at Angel Stadium.
Clutch grand slams for both Dozier and Lamb
Brian Dozier
Brian Dozier also homered for the Twins on Tuesday, with his grand slam turning a one-run deficit into a three-run lead for Minnesota. Jake Lamb replicated that feat for the Diamondbacks later in the night, homering off Dodgers reliever Tony Watson with the bases loaded to give Arizona a 6–3 lead (the D-Backs won by that same score). There was one other day this season in which multiple players hit a go-ahead grand-slam home run with his team trailing at the time. And on that day – June 3 – there were four players that hit home runs of that kind! Those trailing-to-leading salamis were produced by Matt Adams, Kyle Schwarber, Travis Shaw, and Chris Taylor.
Fourth-place batter Max Kepler went 4-for-4 with a home run in the Twins’ 9–5 home win over the Angels yesterday. It had been almost exactly eight years since a Minnesota cleanup hitter went 4-for-4 or better, including a home run. On July 4, 2009, Justin Morneau was 4-for-4 with one homer in a 4–3 win over the Tigers at the Metrodome.
The MLB non-waiver trade deadline of July 31 is coming up fast, just slightly over a month away. I am an old-timer, I admit it, I miss the good old days when baseball trades were made based on the skills of the players and the needs of your ball club. Today it is about the money, how long you can control the player, no trade clauses, free agency and who knows what else. Today’s star players are often traded for minor league players with potential for the future. I hate those kind of trades because you are giving up a known commodity for a player or players that might be a star in the future, you are giving up a sure thing for a maybe. But that is baseball today so we need to accept it and move on.
What about our Minnesota Twins, what will they do? I think the Twins find themselves in a very difficult position. The team is winning just enough to stay in the weak AL Central Division race but yet I think management realizes that this is not a playoff team. On the other hand, their attendance and fan interest has been falling since 2010 and they can ill afford to send up the white flag and signal the start of another rebuild process. So what do you do, buy, sell, or do nothing? So what are the odds that the team will make some moves prior to the trade deadline?
Ervin Santana
This will be the first trade deadline for the Twins under the Derek Falvey and Thad Levine regime so there is no real track record to go on. The Twins have players that would interest other teams and they also have players like Miguel Sano, Max Kepler and Jose Berrios that they won’t trade. The team listened to offers for second baseman Brian Dozier all winter and when all was said and done and decided to keep him. The ace of the starting staff Ervin Santana, 34, would be a nice pick-up for a contender but can a team as pitching starved as the Twins afford to give him up? Some would argue that the Twins can’t afford not to trade him because he is having a great season, maybe a career season and he is signed at a very team friendly deal through 2018 with a team option in 2019.
No matter who the team trades they need to get pitching in return and acquiring pitching is such a risky proposition. It is almost a damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario.
So what is my best guess? I would say that the team will move Ervin Santana, Robbie Grossman and probably some minor league players for pitching. If you go by what Falvey and Levine did this past winter, they will do nothing and wait for their young players to get better.
Salvador Perez’s two-run home run in the second inning got the Royals off and running in the team’s 6-4 victory in the first game of a doubleheader in Minnesota on Sunday. Perez also went deep twice in Kansas City’s defeat in the second game of the double dip. Perez has now hit 14 home runs in 200 at bats at Target Field in his career, the second-best home run ratio (one HR every 14.3 AB) among players with at least 150 at bats in Minnesota’s current home, behind Jim Thome (one HR every 11.8 AB). Perez has averaged one home run for every 29.8 at bats in all other stadiums in his career.
Kennedy allows two homers in the first
Robbie GrossmanMax Kepler
Robbie Grossman and Max Kepler each hit two-run home runs off of Ian Kennedy in the first inning in the Twins’ 8-4 win over the Royals in the second game of a doubleheader on Sunday. It’s the first time Kennedy allowed multiple home runs in the first inning in the 244 starts he has made in his career.
Twins walk to a 7-1 Opening Day win at Target Field over the Kansas City Royals
Joe Mauer
Robbie Grossman, Joe Mauer and Miguel Sano each drew bases loaded walks in the Twins’ six-run seventh inning in their win over the Royals. It was the first time since September 25, 2009 that the Twins drew three bases loaded walks in the same inning. That game was also against the Royals and the Twins players who did it were Joe Mauer, Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer.
The Twins drew only seven bases loaded walks all of last season.
What is going on here? L-R – Jim Pohlad, Michael Cuddyer, Derek Falvey, and ?
The Minnesota Twins find themselves in a strange position this spring. The team is coming off a record-setting 59-103 season and yet there are really no position battles waging in Ft. Myers this spring. All the starting position players are pretty much the same as last season except for the catcher Kurt Suzuki who left via free agency and the Twins signed free agent Jason Castro to replace him and handed him the starting job.
How often does that happen? Usually you lose 103 games and everyone is fighting for a job but that is not the case in the spring of 2017 at the CenturyLink Sports complex where the Twins are preparing for the 2017 season. As I watch the team go through its spring routines there doesn’t seem to be much urgency and the players are acting as if they are all veterans just waiting for the bell to ring in a new season. I can see the players going through the drills but I just don’t see that they are working hard to get better. This team is young, and talented but have they had enough sand kicked in their face yet to really want to win? I hope so.
I am still convinced that Joe Mauer playing first base limits the Twins from taking that next step. Mauer is the grey-beard among the position players at 33 and then Brian Dozier and Jason Castro follow at 29 and the rest of the starting line-up is 25 or under.
If you look at the spring training stats and I know they don’t mean a hill of beans when the season starts BUT this team appears to be a team that can score some runs but will hit for a lower average than what fans might expect. Mauer’s .300 plus days are in his rear view mirror and I am not expecting Jason Castro, Byron Buxton, Max Kepler, Miguel Sano, Jorge Polanco, or Brian Dozier to hit .260 or above. I expect a higher average from Eddie Rosario this year but he too is still unproven.
In spite of what I have written this team should be fun to watch but you must be prepared for those “what the hell just happened” moments. This team will continue to improve as the season progresses and but so much will depend on the teams pitching staff both from the starters and the relievers.
I was used to seeing GM Terry Ryan out next to the fields checking out the action but this year I have not seen Thad Levine at all and Derek Falvey just once and that was this morning. A different style I guess, particularly since all I heard early on about Falvey was how closely he worked with his manager. But you are right, it is still early.
After horrible starts to the season the last two years, how will the Twins leave the starting gate in 2017? Another bad start could would be a serious problem for Paul Molitor and his boys.
I was back out at the ballpark to check on the Twins yesterday to see what the rest of the team was up to when the Twins had a game in Jupiter, Florida scheduled for that afternoon. Jupiter is almost due east of Ft. Myers across the state and although it is only about 140 miles it takes almost three hours to get there. Lake Okeechobee is between Ft. Myers and Jupiter so you end up going around it to the north as you head towards the Atlantic ocean.
Apparently skipper Paul Molitor felt that drive is way too much for most of the Minnesota Twins regulars so he sent the following line-up to play the game at Roger Dean Stadium.
Granite – RF
Santana – LF
Paulsen – 1B
Hague – DH
Shuck – CF
Fields – 2B
Escobar – SS
Murphy – C
Adrianza – 3B
Gibson – P
Not exactly the 1965 Twins but they did manage to keep the game interesting until they allowed the Cards to score the winning run in the bottom of the ninth in a 2-1 loss. Ticket prices for the game on the internet were between $46 and $180. Fans pay prices like this to see a spring training game and the Twins send zero starting position players. CRAZY! Both the Cardinals and the Twins should be embarrassed and MLB should start fining these teams for this kind of behavior.
Are you serious? The Twins coming off a a 59-103 season sign free agent J.B. Shuck to a minor league deal? Why? The guy is 29 years old and has played all or parts of five season with the Astros, Angels, Indians and White Sox. Shuck has eight career home runs, a .251 career average with a .299 OBP. He is weak defensively but he can play all three outfield positions……
I know he won’t make the trip to Minnesota in April but why burn a roster spot and any time Shuck plays some younger player with a chance to get better will not. Just seems silly to me.
Twins rookies highlight five-run inning against Quintana
Entering his start against the Twins at Target Field last night, Jose Quintana had limited rookies to a .141 batting average (10 for 71) and only four RBI this season. But a trio of rookies tagged him for hits in a five-run second inning by Minnesota, Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler singled, and Byron Buxton connected for a three-run homer–and that outburst catapulted the Twins to an 8-5 victory over the White Sox breaking the Minnesota Twins 13-game losing streak.
Miguel Sano, age 23, hit two home runs in the Twins’ 6-3 win at Tampa Bay. Sano’s teammate Max Kepler, also 23, has two multi-homer games in 2016. The last pair of Minnesota players, each under 24, who both hit two home runs in a game within the same season were Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau in 2004.
