Monthly Archives: April 2014

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–April 17

Alexander Cartwright (1820)
Cap Anson (1852)
Tom Needham (1879)
Jake Daubert (1884)
Buzz Arlitt (1912)
Solly Hemus (1923)
Tsutomu Wakamatsu (1947)
Denny Walling (1954)
Craig Worthington (1965)
Marquis Grissom (1967)
Gary Bennett (1972)
Ryan Raburn (1981)

Alexander Cartwright was instrumental in developing the rules for the game of baseball.

Buzz Arlitt was a star in the low minors from 1934-1941, and probably would have been for several more years had World War II not intervened.  He had a career average of .319 with a slugging average of .480, but never played above Class C.

Tsutomu Wakamatsu was a star in Japan from 1971-1989, making the all-star team eleven times.  His career average of .319 is second to Leron Lee on the all-time list of players with at least four thousand at-bats.

There do not appear to be any major league players with connections to the Minnesota Twins who were born on this day.

The Nation Has An Appetite

Mexican Tuna Melt

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Or a tuna quesadilla, whichever floats your barco.

I tend to eat a lot of what I'd classify as "bachelor chow" - frozen pizzas, cans of tuna, pasta in sauce. I'm actually a pretty good cook and enjoy cooking, but funds are tight so no bacon-wrapped scallops for me at the moment. I hope I don't cause our resident gourmands any embarrassment to share a post category with me, but I thought I'd share something I whipped up that turned out, I thought, very well. Continue reading Mexican Tuna Melt →

NBA

Game 82. Utah @ Wolves. 7:00 pm

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Since the Twins game has been weathered out lets talk about the local cagers one last time. They are 40-41 on the year, which is the 8th highest win total in the 25 years of existence.

Think about that.

Why do we choose to follow this team?

Couple of milestones in store tonight: Kevin Love could become the first Timberwolves player to eclipse the 2000 point barrier
Ricky Rubio need 3 assists to reach 700

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–April 16

Dutch Leonard (1892)
Paul Waner (1903)
Babe Phelps (1908)
Pete Hughes (1915)
Pete Suder (1916)
Joe Bauman (1922)
Rich Rollins (1938)
Bernie Allen (1939)
Garry Roggenburk (1940)
Jim Lonborg (1942)
Bob Montgomery (1944)
Bruce Bochy (1955)
Curt Young (1960)
Fernando Vina (1969)
Antonio Alfonseca (1972)
Kelly Dransfeldt (1975)

Pete Hughes was a star in the low minors from 1937-1952.  His incomplete career numbers are a .350 average and a .637 slugging percentage, but for some reason he never played above Class B.

Joe Bauman hit 72 home runs for Roswell in the Longhorn League in 1954.

Kelly Dransfeldt was drafted by Minnesota in the seventh round in 1993, but did not sign.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–April 16 →

2014 Twins Game Logs

Game 13: Blue Jays at the Bullseye

39 Comments

Well, its time for the first Tuesday game of the season. This should be a good time with an expected game time temperature of 36º F. (goodness, could you imagine the Pelf pitching in this stuff? brrr) This seems like a good time for some birds to come into town (not that Toronto is any warmer), so the Twins will have that going for them.

Anyway, your starting pitchers for tonight:

Morrow (1-1, 5.73) vs. Hughes (0-0, 7.20)

I would expect a decent amount of strikeouts this game as both pitchers are striking out 1+/inning. Hughes has only gone five innings in each start, though against Oakland he had that bad first inning, then four good innings. Hopefully he keeps those good innings going and continues this trend of the starters eating some innings. It would warm my heart if, by the end of the year, Hughes showed that it was that awful place in NY that was the problem.

Taking a quick look at Morrow's game logs for his first two starts shows him pitching well at the beginning of games, but losing it a bit later on. It'd be great if Twins hitters could continue this trend of taking a lot of pitches. They lead the league in that stat, taking 4.14 PPA which has also put them atop the leaderboard in walks.