May 11 – This Day in Twins History
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2024 – TWINS BLOW BIG LEAD NORTH OF THE BORDER: The Twins lost to the Blue Jays by a score of 10-8 at Rogers Centre, blowing a 7-1 lead. The loss snapped a seven-game road winning streak, one short of tying the club record. It marked their first loss away from Minnesota since April 17 at Baltimore. Simeon Woods Richardson was the starter but did not factor into the decision, allowing five runs on eight hits in 4.1 innings pitched, with one walk and two strikeouts. The bullpen combined to allow five runs on eight hits and three walks in 3.2 innings of relief. The offense recorded 13 hits, led by Carlos Santana, who went 2-for-4 with a home run (5), two runs scored and three RBI. Ryan Jeffers added a home run, his team-leading ninth of the season. A great crowd of 35,609 showed up to cheer on their under-performing Jays. Box Score
2023 – The Twins beat the Padres at Target Field on get away day by a score of 5-3, winning the three-game series and improving to 6-5-1 in series play (5-1-0 at Target Field). Bailey Ober was the starter but did not factor into the decision, allowing three runs on six hits in 6 innings pitched, with no walks and six strikeouts. Emilio Pagán, Brock Stewart and Jorge López combined to pitch 3 scoreless innings of relief. The offense recorded six hits with Joey Gallo getting two of them. Kyle Farmer hit his second home run and Carlos Correa contributed a 2-RBI double. Starter Tyler Mahle announced he was done for the season and will undergo TJ surgery. Box Score
2022 – Today’s starters were Chris Archer for the Twins and Jose Urquidy for the visiting Houston Astros. The Astros had a 5-1 lead after three innings and the Twins brought in Yennier Cano to pitch but when he had completed his warm-up pitches but before he could throw a pitch to Martin Maldonado, the umpires called the players off the field due to rain and an incoming severe storm as the Twin Cities were under a tornado warning. The game was eventually suspended and scheduled to be resumed tomorrow. An oddity of this game was that Cano was making his major league debut and this goes down in the record books as his MLB debut even though he has not thrown a pitch. Mark Contreras, an outfielder also entered the game at the same point (replacing Byron Buxton) and he too was making his major league debut and he too will be credited with his MLB debut today even though he did not see any action. Archer (0-0, 3.26 ERA) tallied up 75 pitches in three innings, leaving with five hits, four earned runs, three walks and two strikeouts. This is the second suspended game in Target Field’s history (since 2010), the previous was on May 25, 2010 vs. New York-AL. The night game was stopped by rain at 8:32 pm (CT) with a scoreless game at the end of five innings. At
9:55 pm, the game was suspended and resumed at 4:05 pm the next afternoon, prior to the regularly-scheduled game. The Yankees ended up winning the game 1-0.
This game was resumed and finished the next day and the Astros went on to an 11-3 win. Yennier Cano did pitch for the Twins throwing 36 pitches in 2.1 innings and allowing 3 earned runs on 3 hits and 2 strikeouts. Mark Contreras also played and had a Sac Fly in his first plate appearance and finished the day 0 for 2 with a runs scored in addition to the RBI Sac Fly. Chris Archer (0-1) was awarded the loss and Houston reliever Bryan Abreu (2-0) got the win. Box Score
2021 – Two days off doesn’t help as the Twins lose to the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field by a score of 9-3. The Twins scored first with three runs in the second inning but Chicago scored the next nine runs. Kenta Maeda was the Twins starter but did not factor into the decision, allowing three runs on four hits in five innings pitched. The Twins bullpen proceeded to give up six runs on seven hits and two walks over the final three innings. Jorge Alcala (0-1) took the loss. The offense recorded nine hits and went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position, leaving ten men on base (their second straight game with 10-plus left on base). Jorge Polanco went 2-for-4 and hit his third home run of the season. Box Score
2020 – The Twins are on the road in the Motor City and ready to start a four-game series with the Detroit Tigers. But as we all know it did not happen. So far all games this season have been postponed/canceled due to COVID-19. We have now missed 41 games. Over 25% of this years games down the crapper.
2019 – The Twins played two games today as part of a split double-header. The first game was a make-up game from April 12 that was postponed and the Tigers beat the Twins at Target Field 5-3 when The Tigers scored twice in the ninth off Trevor Hildenberger after the Twins had tied the game at 3-3 in the bottom of the previous inning. Michael Pineda started for the home town team and went 6 innings allowing 3 runs. Jason Castro had two hits with a home run and a double and C.J. Cron also hit one into the stands. Box Score
Recent AAA call-up Kohl Stewart (1-1) makes a spot start for the Twins and goes six innings allowing six hits and three runs and earns his first win of the season as the Twins beat up the Tigers 8-3 to salvage a split on the day. The Twins 15 hit attack was led by C.J. Cron who had 4 hits coming up a triple short of the cycle and knocked in 3 base runners while Eddie Rosario had three hits as he fights his way out of a hitting funk. Marwin Gonzalez also hit a long ball giving him three on the season. Box Score
2018 – The Twins are taking on the Angels at Angels Stadium of Anaheim and trail 4 to 2 after 8 innings and hopes are dim because the Twins are 0-14 so far this season when trailing after 8 innings. However; this day will be different as Eddie Rosario leads off the ninth with his second homer of the game. Robbie Grossman struck out but Logan Morrison doubled, the injured (bruised hand) Max Kepler was brought in to pinch-hit for Byron Buxton and was given an intentional walk putting runners on first and second. Mitch Garver singled to score Morrison and the game was tied at 4-4. The recently acquired back-up catcher Bobby Wilson hit a sac fly to deep left to score Kepler and the Twins had a 5-4 lead. That left it up to Fernando Rodney to sew up the save which he did allowing a single and retiring Mike Trout for the final out of the game on a line out to short. Twins reliever Matt Magill earned his first big league win and a beer shower. TWINS WIN! Box Score
2015 – No game today, scheduled day off.
2009 – No Game today, scheduled day off.
2006 – No game today, scheduled day off.
1982 – The Twins trade ace reliever Doug Corbett and second baseman Rob Wilfong to California for outfielder Tom Brunansky, pitcher Mike Walters and cash.
1981 – No game today, scheduled day off.
1978 – No game today. Twins versus White Sox in Chicago was rained out and will be played on June 25 as part of a DH.
1977 – The red-hot Minnesota Twins who had won four in a row and seven of ther last eight were finishing up a three-city road in Detroit. But today at Tiger Stadium was not their day as they played poorly in the field and had just five hits. Falling behind 7-2 after four innings the Twins just couldn’t get things going in spite of four Tigers errors and took an 8-3 loss. Geoff Zahn (5-1) started for Minnesota but gave up 7 earned runs on 10 hits over 3 innings and took his first loss of the season. Dave Johnson appearing in his first ever game for the Twins pitched the last 5 innings of relief allowing one run on two hits. Dave Roberts (3-4) pitched a complete game for Detroit in the win. A crowd of 7,893 showed up for the game. No Twin had more than one hit and Glenn Borgmann had 2 RBI and Jerry Terrell had the other. Box Score
Twins versus Tigers broadcast is about 2 hours and 15 minutes
1972 – No game today, scheduled day off.
1970 – No game today, scheduled day off.
1969 – The Twins lose their final game of a short road trip when the Tigers and Denny McLain beat them 3-2 and knock the Twins out of sole possession of first in the AL West. The Tigers jumped out to a 3-0 lead and hung on as the Twins scored one in the seventh and again in the eighth but could not get anymore. Rich Reese led the Twins attack with 3 hits, all doubles in four at bats and Tony Oliva hit a home run. Twins starter Jim Kaat took the loss. The loss drops the Twins record to 18-9. Box Score
1963 – Kansas City A’s pitcher Ted Bowsfield takes a no-hitter into the ninth at Metropolitan Stadium but puts Zoilo Versalles on via a walk and Vic Power singles breaking up the no-hitter. Versalles ends up scoring on a double play and Bob Allison singles but Bowsfield retires Earl Battey for the final out and the A’s win 5-1. Box Score
1961 – The Twins are guilty of five errors (Versalles=2, Killebrew=2 and Green=1) allowing for 3 unearned runs and deservedly come up on the short-end of an 8-7 loss. Starter Camilo Pascual (2-3) went 4.2 innings allowing 6 runs, 4 earned for the loss. Don Mincher was 3 for 3 with 3 runs scored with a double and a home run. The Twins had 14 hits but five errors will kill you every time. Box Score
1926 – Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators records his 400th career win when he defeats the St. Louis Browns, 7-4, to reach the rarely-achieved milestone…”The Big Train” remains the all-time Twins/ Senators franchise leader in wins with 417.
1919 – Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators pitched 12 scoreless innings in a duel with Jack Quinn of the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Johnson allowed only two hits and retired 28 batters in-a-row. The Senators moved to Minnesota prior to the 1961 season. Johnson is the Twins/Senators franchise all-time leader in wins (417), starts (666), games (802), ERA (2.17), complete games (531), innings pitched (5914.2) and shutouts (110).
1858 – Minnesota became the 32nd state of the union on May 11, 1858. A small extension of the northern boundary makes it the most northerly of the 48 conterminous U.S. states. (This peculiar protrusion is the result of a boundary agreement with Great Britain before the area had been carefully surveyed.) Minnesota is bounded by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north, by Lake Superior and Wisconsin to the east, by Iowa to the south and South Dakota and North Dakota to the west.