Monthly Archives: October 2017

Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game Twenty-one

TAMPA BAY 9, MINNESOTA 1 IN TAMPA BAY

Date:  Wednesday, April 24.

Batting stars:  Torii Hunter was 1-for-3 with a home run, his seventh.  Matthew LeCroy was 1-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Jack Cressend and Mike Jackson each pitched a scoreless inning.

Opposition stars:  Ryan Rupe pitched seven shutout innings, giving up one hit and one walk with five strikeouts.  Russ Johnson was 2-for-3 with a walk.  Jason Tyner was 2-for-4 with a walk.

The game:  There was no score until the third.  The Devil Rays loaded the bases with none out on a double and two walks.  Steve Cox then had an RBI single followed by a sacrifice fly to give Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead.  In the fifth, the Devil Rays put the game out of reach with seven runs.  Three singles opened the inning to produce two runs.  An error and a walk loaded the bases, and three more singles produced five more runs.  The Twins had only one hit through the first seven innings and three for the game.  They scored their lone run when Hunter led off the eighth with a home run.

WP:  Rupe (3-1).  LP:  Eric Milton (3-2).  S:  None.

Notes:  LeCroy was the DH in the continued absence of David Ortiz...Jay Canizaro got the call at second base, going 0-for-3 to drop his average to .138...Milton pitched 4.1 innings, allowing eight runs (six earned) on seven hits and three walks with one strikeout.  His ERA went to 5.90...Jackson dropped his ERA to 1.13...Jacque Jones was 0-for-4 to make his average .329...LeCroy had his average drop to .308...Hunter's average went to .383...Dustan Mohr was 1-for-3 and was batting .362...A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-3 to make his average .333...Tyner was batting .225...Chris Gomez was 1-for-4 to make his average .288...Brent Abernathy was 1-for-3 with a walk to raise his average to .265...Despite his excellent performance in this game, Rupe was, to put it bluntly, not a good pitcher.  In five seasons in the majors he had only one ERA below five, posting a 4.55 ERA in his rookie year of 1999.  In three of his five years his ERA was above six.  Even so, he made 89 appearances in the majors, 84 of them starts.  Part of the reason for that is that, of course, is that the Devil Rays weren't very good in those years.  Another part of it, though, is that every once in a while he'd put together a performance like this, giving Tampa Bay hope that perhaps he could do it consistently.  In his fifteen starts in 2002, he had two complete games and four game scores of 77 or higher.  Unfortunately, he also had three games in which he couldn't get past the fourth inning and six game scores of 36 or lower.  He appears to have been a pitcher who, in Bill James' phrase, pitched well just often enough to fool you into pitching him some more.  He left the Devil Rays after this season, made four appearances with Boston in 2003, and then his big league career was over.

Record:  The Twins were 13-8, in second place, a game behind Chicago.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–October 25

Jack Doyle (1869)
Smoky Joe Wood (1889)
Jack Kent Cooke (1912)
Lee McPhail (1917)
Russ Meyer (1923)
Bobby Thomson (1923)
Bobby Brown (1924)
Roy Hartsfield (1925)
Chuck Schilling (1937)
Al Cowens (1951)
Roy Smalley (1952)
Rowland Office (1952)
Tito Landrum (1954)
Danny Darwin (1955)
Andy McGaffigan (1956)
Steve Decker (1965)
Keith Garagozzo (1969)
Pedro Martinez (1971)
Wilkin Ramirez (1985)

Jack Kent Cooke, better known as the owner of the Washington Redskins and the Los Angeles Lakers, owned the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team in the International League from 1951-1964.  He made several unsuccessful attempts to bring major league baseball to Toronto and is a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Lee MacPhail was the general manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1958-1965 and of the New York Yankees from 1966-1973.  He was the president of the American League from 1974-1983.  He is the son of Larry MacPhail and the father of Andy MacPhail.

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Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game Twenty

TAMPA BAY 6, MINNESOTA 4 IN TAMPA BAY

Date:  Tuesday, April 23.

Batting stars:  A. J. Pierzynski was 3-for-4 with a triple and a double.  Dustan Mohr was 3-for-4 with a double.  Doug Mientkiewicz was 1-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Tony Fiore pitched 2.1 scoreless innings.  Jack Cressend and Bob Wells each pitched a scoreless inning.

Opposition stars:  Brent Abernathy was 2-for-4.  Randy Winn was 2-for-4.  Steve Cox was 1-for-4 with a home run.

The game:  Twins starter Brad Radke pitched a perfect first inning only to run into trouble in the second.  Pierzynski delivered an RBI triple in the top of the inning.  In the bottom half, with a man on first and two out, the Devil Rays (as they were then known) came up with four consecutive singles to score three runs.  Minnesota tied it in the third on a Mientkiewicz two-run double.  The tie didn't last long, as Cox opened the bottom of the third with a homer to put Tampa Bay up 4-3.  Winn delivered a two-out two-run single in the fourth to make it 6-3.  The Twins made it 6-4 in the seventh on Pierzynski's run-scoring single.  They threatened to tie in the ninth, as with two out Mohr singled and Pierzynski doubled, putting men on second and third.  That brought up Denny Hocking.  Without knowing what the bench options were at the time it's hard to second-guess the decision to allow him to bat, but Hocking was never a great batter and was off to a very slow start in 2002.  In any event, he grounded out to second to end the game.

WP:  Joe Kennedy (1-1).  LP:  Radke (2-2).  S:  Esteban Yan (4).

Notes:  Brian Buchanan was again the DH, going 0-for-3.  Hocking was the second baseman and was 0-for-4...Jacque Jones was 1-for-4 with a double and was batting .346...Torii Hunter was 0-for-4 to drop his average to .385...Mohr raised his average to .364...Pierzynski brought his average up to .351...Radke lasted just 3.2 innings, allowing six runs on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts...Fiore remained unscored upon in three appearances (6 innings).  This was the one good season he had, going 10-3, 3.18.  He even finished eighth in Rookie of the Year voting.  Unfortunately, he would only spend one more year in the big leagues...Three players in the Tampa Bay lineup would have Twins connections.  Jason Tyner (who oddly was not used as the DH) was 1-for-5.  Chris Gomez was 1-for-3 with a walk.  The other, of course, was Abernathy...Devil Rays starter Joe Kennedy pitched five innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on six hits and no walks with three strikeouts...My recollection was that Ben Grieve, who was 0-for-2 with two walks in this game, had flopped in Tampa Bay, but he really didn't.  He wasn't as good as he'd been in Oakland, but he was still a decent player in his first two seasons there (2001-02).

Record:  The Twins were 13-7, tied for first place with Chicago.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–October 24

Ned Williamson (1857)
Bill Kuehne (1858)
Lou Sockalexis (1871)
Ossie Bluege (1900)
Jack Russell (1905)
Jim Brosnan (1929)
Rawly Eastwick (1950)
Omar Moreno (1952)
Gary Serum (1956)
Ron Gardenhire (1957)
Junior Ortiz (1959)
Danny Clay (1961)
Rafael Belliard (1961)
Gene Larkin (1962)
Arthur Rhodes (1969)
Rafael Furcal (1977)
Chris Colabello (1983)

Third baseman Ossie Bluege played for the franchise in Washington for eighteen years and remained in the organization for many years after that. He is credited as being the first third baseman to guard the lines in the late innings. He is also credited as the scout who discovered Harmon Killebrew.

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Cup of Coffee

23 October 2017: Love that Lutefisk

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On Saturday we took my mother-in-law, who is 100% Greek, to a lutefisk supper at a very old, tiny Norwegian Lutheran church within the exclusive economic zone of the People’s Republic. As she recently bought a place in preparation to move up here from Flatlandia, it was our way of welcoming her to the state. Arriving early, we walked around the churchyard. I noted a few headstones with dates of birth dating back to the eighteenth century, which one doesn’t often see in this part of the country. There was a marble cenotaph honoring seventeen congregants who served in the Civil War: six of the men were named Ole. There were also two Arnes & a Knut.