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2022 – The Twins score early and often at Guaranteed Rate Field and beat up the White Sox 10-1 in the season finale for both teams. Twins rookie starter Louie Varland (1-2) starts for Minnesota and goes five scoreless innings allowing four hits and strikes out five to earn his first big league win in five starts. Cole Sands pitches the last four innings allowing one run on four hits and get his first big league save. Gary Sanchez (16) and Jermaine Palacios (2) each hit home runs. Luis Arraez goes 1 for 2 and earns his first American League batting championship with a .316 average. The Twins snap a four game losing streak and finish the season with a 78-84 record and are third in the Central Division 14 games behind the the Guardians and 3 games behind the White Sox. The Tigers and Royals trail the pack. The Twins were 32-49 on the road and 46-35 at home. Box Score
2019 – Game 2 of the Twins versus Yankees 2019 ALDS turned out to be more of the same as the Twins lost an MLB record 15th straight postseason game when the Twins came out on the short-end of an 8-2 game in front of 49,277 happy Yankee fans at Yankee Stadium III. The Twins were down quickly when the Yankees crossed home plate seven times in the third inning with four coming on a Grand Slam by Didi Gregorius to take a 8-0 lead before the Twins could score. In another of those strange Rocco Baldelli decisions the Twins started rookie Randy Dobnak the Uber driver-turned-big league pitcher and he struggled through two innings and was unable to retire anyone in the third inning and was replaced by Tyler Duffey who allowed 4 runs and only retired two batters before he too hit the showers after 27 pitches. The seven pitchers used by the Twins in this game walked 8 Yankee batters just like Twins pitchers did in the first game of the series. Twins bats only mustered six hits with Luis Arraez and Mitch Garver each getting two. The Twins finished the regular season with a road record of 55-26, tied with the 1971 Oakland A’s for the third most road wins in baseball history, trailing the 2001 Mariners (59-22) and the 2018 Astros (57-24) but their road warriors luck did not hold in this ALDS. Box Score
2012 – The Twins announce that the “interim” label has been removed from Terry Ryan’s title. Ryan took over the GM role on an interim basis on November 7 of last year after Bill Smith was relieved of his duties and reassigned.
2009 – No game today, scheduled day off. The tie-breaker game between the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers was not played today because the NFL Minnesota Vikings also call the Metrodome home and they had a big Monday night game scheduled against the Green Bay Packers which they won when Brett Favre played his first game against his former team. The game will be played tomorrow.
2004 – The Twins beat the New York Yankees 2-0 at Yankee Stadium II and go up 1 game to zip in the ALDS. Johan Santana was the winner with seven innings of shutout baseball and Mike Mussina was the loser. Joe Nathan recorded his first post season save. Jacque Jones hit a solo home run. The Twins also set a playoff record when they turned 5 double plays. Box Score
2002 – A crowd of 55,960 packs the Dome to watch the Twins tie the 2002 ALDS at 2 games apiece with a 11-2 whipping of the A’s in the Dome. Two Oakland errors in the fourth led to a seven run inning for the local nine. Eric Milton got the win and Doug Mientkiewicz was the hitting star with a 3 for 4 day with a home run while Torii Hunter and David Ortiz each had two hits with an RBI. Box Score
1986 – Another season goes in the history books as Minnesota ended their 1986 season at the Metrodome with a 3-0 shutout of the Chicago White on a Frank Viola 2-hitter, his first shutout in two years. It was fitting that Viola (16-13) who won the Season Opener on April 8 would also win the season finale. The game only had 7 hits and 5 of them belonged to the Twins with Greg Gagne getting 2 of those. Most of the 7,208 fans walked away happy after the 2 hours and 2 minute game. The Twins finished 71-91 losing more games then only two other Twins teams in the first 25 years. The Twins were sixth in the 7 team AL West. Joe Cowley (11-11) also pitched a complete game but came up the loser. Box Score
1980 – The Twins finish the 1980 season barely trying as they lose 4-0 to the Kansas City Royals at Royals Stadium getting just one hit and committing three errors. Just a day earlier they lost to the Royals 17-1. The starters were Darrell Jackson (9-9) for Minnesota who took the loss and Paul Splittorff (14-11) who went the first five innings for the win. Rich Gale went the final four innings for his first of two career saves. The Twins started the game with a walk to Gary Ward and a single by John Castino and that was the Twins one and only hit of the game of the quick 2 hour and 5 minute game. The Twins finished the 1980 season in third place with a 77-84 record. 25,603 fans showed up to see the first place Royals end the season with a 97-65 record and eventually go to the World Series but lose to the Phillies in six games. Box Score
1970 – The Twins again lose game 3 and the ALCS to the Baltimore Orioles in 3 games. This extends the Twins ALCS losing streak to 6 games, all loses to the Baltimore Orioles in the last 2 years. Cesar Tovar and Tony Oliva had four of the seven Twins hits. Jim Kaat started and was the loser going just two innings and allowing four runs, two earned on six hits. Jim Palmer pitches a complete game for the win allowing 7, hits, 3 walks, 1 run and strikes out 12. Box Score
1969 – The Twins lost game 2 of the ALCS to the Orioles in Baltimore, this time in 11 innings by a 1-0 score when pinch-hitter (for Elrod Hendricks) Curt Motton’s single with two out and two on gives Baltimore a walk-off win. Dave McNally goes the distance for the Orioles and gets the win allowing just 3 hits, 5 walks and strikes out 11 Twins. Dave Boswell went 10.2 innings and was pulled for Ron Perranoski to face Curt Motton but took the tough luck loss. Boswell had allowed 7 hits and 7 walks and struck out 4 before being taken out of the game.The only Twins hits belonged to Tovar, Oliva and Mitterwald. Box Score
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