(click on images once or twice to make them larger)
2023 – The Twins played their regular seaon finale against the Rockies at Coors Field and starter Bailey Ober turned over a 2-1 lead but Jorge Alcala gave up a home run with two out in the eighth inning and the game went extra’s but remained tied at 2-2 until the 11th. The Twins had the bases loaded in the 11th with two out but outfielder Jordan Luplow went down swinging against Gavin Hollowell. The Twins then sent Luplow to the mound to pitch the bottom of the 11th and with the ghost runner on second base, Luplow retired Charlie Blackmon for the first out. With Brendan Rodgers at the plate he steals third while Luplow throws a wild pitch and then scores and the Rockies walk-off the Twins 3-2. Jordan Luplow gets pinned with the loss becoming the first Twins position player to ever get a pitching decision. Bad day for Luplow as he struck out in the top of the inning with the bases loaded and then wild pitches in the winning run in the bottom of the inning. Oh well, he will have an entire off-season to think about it. The Twins finish the season winning the AL Central with a 87-75 record and nine games ahead of the second place Detroit Tigers. In the second half of the season the Twins played .592 (42-29) baseball. The playoffs await and they will face the Toronto Blue Jays at Target Field. Box Score
In off the field news the Twins announced today that infielder Brooks Lee has been named the 2023 Sherry Robertson Award winner as the Twins minor league Player of the Year and right-handed pitcher Cory Lewis has been named the 2023 Jim Rantz Award winner as the Twins minor league Pitcher of the Year.
2022 – Mistakes in the field, on the bases and a 1 for 7 with RISP spelled a Twins loss to the Tigers at Comerica Park by a score of 3-2. Dylan Bundy made his final start of the season and does not factor into the decision, allowing two runs on five hits in 5 innings pitched, with no walks and three strikeouts. Ronny Henriquez (0-1) who pitched the last three innings took the loss. The offense recorded 10 hits as Luis Arraez went 2-for-5, raising his batting average to .315. Mark Contreras added a solo home run, the third of his career. Box Score
2021 – The Twins lose to the Royals in the first game of the final roadtrip of 2021 by a score of 11-6. Twins starter John Gant was the starter and loser, allowing six runs on eight hits in 4 innings pitched with two walks and three strikeouts. After the game Gant was put on the IL. With the 11 runs given up, the Twins have now allowed double-digit runs 20 times this season, second-most in history behind 22 in 1997. The loss to KC also clinched last place for the Twins in the AL Central for the fifth time in the past 11 seasons. Twins bats recorded 13 hits, including a solo home run from Ryan Jeffers (career-high 14th HR of the season); it was his first hit versus the Royals since his homer on June 6 at Kauffman Stadium off Mike Minor, snapping an 0-for-19 skid. Byron Buxton and Miguel Sanó each collected three hits. Box Score
2018 – The Minnesota Twins announced today that they have signed a two-year player development contract with the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. This will be the first affiliation between the two teams. The Twins have had seven different previous Double-A affiliations in franchise history: Chattanooga (1946-1959, 2015-2018), New Britain (1997-2014), Hardware City (1995-1996), Nashville (1961, 1993-1994), Orlando (1973-1992), Charlotte (1963-1972), and Albany (1935-1936).
2009 – Delmon Young goes 3 for 4 and four other Twins hitters get two hits each against the Tigers at Comerica Park in the Twins 8-3 victory. Scott Baker goes five innings allowing one run (zero earned) on five hits for the win. With an RBI Mike Cuddyer joined Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel and Joe Mauer with 90 or more RBI’s this season, this is the first time in Twins history they have had more than 3 players knock in 90 or more runs in a season. Box Score
2006 – Torii Hunter’s two-run home run in the fourth inning at the Metrodome puts the Twins out to a 3-1 lead over the visiting White Sox and they hold for a 5-1 win in the regular season finale. The Minnesota Twins become the first team in major league history to take the league or division lead by themselves for the first time on the final day of the regular season. Carlos Silva goes 5.1 innings for the win. Joe Mauer at the age of 23 becomes the first American League catcher to ever win a batting title by hitting .347. A crowd of 45,182 fans showed up at the Dome for the season’s regular season finale. The Twins finished with a 96-66 record. Box Score
2002 – The Twins over came three errors to beat the A’s in Oakland 7-5 in game 1 of the 2002 ALDS after trailing by a 5-1 score after two innings. A.J. Pierzynski goes 4 for 4 with a triple, RBI and run scored. Corey Koskie and Doug Mientkiewicz each hit home runs and Brad Radke was the winning pitcher. Box Score
2000 – The season finale for both teams goes on (and on) for one minute short of four hours in a game with numerous lead changes. The Detroit Tigers walk-off the Minnesota Twins on a day when Detroit’s Shane Halter became the fourth major leaguer to play all nine positions in a game and capped his adventure by scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning as the Tigers walk-off Minnesota 12-11 at Comerica Park. The Twins had 15 hits with Torii Hunter getting three of them. J.C. Romero was the starter but Eddie Guardado blew the Save and took the loss. It was the last game that the Twins would play in the 20th century. Box Score
1995 – A dismal season ended with an extra-inning walk-off loss to the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park II by a 2-1 score. Rich Robertson started for the Twins and went 9 innings but got a ND for his work in which he gave up one run on five hits. Alex Fernandez did even better going ten innings and allowing one run on five hits but he too took the ND for his effort. With Dave Stephens pitching for Minnesota in the 11th the White Sox scored on a Robin Ventura single with one out and walked off the Twins. The loss ended a miserable season for Minnesota who finished 56-88 tieing with the Toronto Blue Jays for the worst record in MLB. With the loss the Twins finished an amazing 44 games out of first place. Stevens (5-4) took the loss. Roberto Hernandez (3-7) was the winner. Of the five Twins hits three belonged to Matt Lawton and the only RBI was on a Marty Cordova Sac Fly. 20,457 fans attended the game on nice sunny 73 degree day. Box Score
1989 – The Twins final game of the season ends up being a 3-1 to the Seattle Mariners in the Kingdome and the Twins finish the year in 5th place in the seven team AL West Division with an 80-82 record. Rookie starter Mark Guthrie goes 6 innings and allows two runs on six hits but all he gets for his work is a loss. Brian Harper leads the Twins hitting attack with three hits while Kirby Puckett goes 2 for 5 and wins his only batting title, hitting .339 to edge out Carney Lansford who hits .336. Box Score
1981 – No game today, scheduled day off.
1980 – No game again today due to wet grounds. One of the games was cancelled outright and the 9/30 game was moved to October 2 as part of a DH.
1978 – The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins 1-0 at Royals Stadium in the season finale in front of 23,794 fans in a game that was over in less than 2 hours (1 hour 59 minutes). The Royals had four hits and the Twins just two, both by Bombo Rivera. Geoff Zahn went the distance for Minnesota taking the loss and finishing his season with a 14-14 record. The Royals started Larry Guru who went three innings and four relievers followed him with George Throop getting the win, the first of only two wins he would get in the big leagues. Bill Paschall got the save, the first and only one he would have in his short big league career. Rod Carew was held out of the game but won his seventh batting title. Carew was still steaming about comments that owner Calvin Griffith made about him in Waseca a few days earlier and stated that he would not play for a Calvin Griffith team again. Box Score
1974 – In the penultimate game of the 1974 season the Twins and Dave Goltz shut out the visiting Texas Rangers at Met Stadium but a score of 6-0. But there was a lot more to this game than meets the eye. Stew Thornley attended the game but was not the official scorer that he would become later in his career and he did a great write-up of this game that you can read below. Back then according to Stew:
“During the period when the Base Ball Writers Association of America provided official scorers for games, columnists and beat writers often did double duty, picking up extra dollars by making judgments on hits and errors while also covering the games for their newspaper. Eventually active writers were removed from scoring duties because of a conflict of interest between the roles. On October 1, 1974, Fowler experienced the conflict.”
Dave Goltz pitched a complete game and according to sportswriter Chan Keith, threw only 70 pitches in the game. Goltz allowed two hits and the first hit that he allowed caused quite a ruckus that you can read about in Stew’s summary of the game here.
Danny Thompson was 3 for 3 with 2 RBI and lead-off hitter Steve Brye was 2 for 5 with 2 RBI.
1967 – The Twins and Dean Chance cruised along with a 2-0 lead at Fenway Park in front of a crowd of 35,770 until the bottom of the sixth inning when the wheels came off the Twins bandwagon and the Boston Red Sox scored 5 times and held on for a 5-3 win behind Red Sox starter Jim Lonborg who won his 22nd game of the season. Dean Chance was the loser going five innings and allowing five runs on eight hits. The Twins could only get seven hits and Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva had two each. The Red Sox went on to lose the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals and for the Twins, Tigers, and White Sox it was wait until next year in what was perhaps the American Leagues greatest pennant race ever. Box Score
Star_Tribune_Mon__Oct_2__1967_ (11)
Star_Tribune_Mon__Oct_2__1967_ (12)
Star_Tribune_Mon__Oct_2__1967_ (13)
Star_Tribune_Mon__Oct_2__1967_ (14)
Star_Tribune_Mon__Oct_2__1967_ (15)
Star_Tribune_Mon__Oct_2__1967_ (16)
Star_Tribune_Mon__Oct_2__1967_ (17)
1965 – No game today, scheduled day off.
1961 – The Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers wasted no time playing their 1961 season finale at Met Stadium as the Twins came out on the short-end of a 8-3 ballgame that was played in a quick 1 hour and 57 minutes in front of 15,723 paying fans. The loss was the fourth in a row for the seventh-place Twins and put their final record at 70-90. It was a chilly 44 degrees when Al Schroll started his eighth game of the season but he didn’t last long as he was gone before the first inning ended giving up 5 runs, 2 earned on 4 hits, 2 walks and a wild pitch and an error. The game moved along quickly as do most final games of the season as players want to move on to the off-season. The Twins had 8 hits but did manage two home runs, both solo’s that were hit by reliever Pedro Ramos (3) and Bill Tuttle (5). Ramos relieved Schroll (4-4) and pitched 6.1 innings of stellar scoreless relief giving up just three hits. Jim Kaat went one inning and Don Lee pitched the final inning. Twins owner Calvin Griffith announced that manager Sam Mele would return in 1962 as a nice salary of around $22,000. In an unusual move he also announced that he would let Mele determine his coaching staff, something that Griffith had done in the past. As a harbinger of things to come in the future, the Twins finished the season with the Yankees with a 4-14 record. In other big news New York Yankee outfielder Roger Maris hit home run # 61 breaking Babe Ruth’s long-standing record of 60 in a season. Maris hit the home run off pitcher Tracy Stallard in a 1-0 Yankee win over the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. Box Score
1945 – Hall of Famer Rodney Cline Carew is born in Gatun, in the Panama Canal Zone. SABR BIO
