Monthly Archives: December 2017

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–December 24

Due to personal time constraints, this is a reprint from last year which has not been updated.

Joe Quinn (1862)
Henry Mathewson (1886)
Chico Garcia (1924)
Frank Taveras (1949)
John D'Acquisto (1951)
Tim Drummond (1964)
Mo Sanford (1966)
Kevin Millwood (1974)
Jamey Wright (1974)

Henry Mathewson is the younger brother of Christy Mathewson.  He appeared in two games for the Giants in 1906 and one in 1907.

Chico Garcia played professional baseball from 1944-1970, mostly in Mexico.  He played thirty-nine games in the majors in 1954 with Baltimore.  He also was a manager in Mexico for fifteen seasons.

Continue reading Happy Birthday–December 24 →

Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game Eighty

MINNESOTA 5, MILWAUKEE 1 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Friday, June 28.

Batting stars:  A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-3 with a home run (his fifth) and a walk, driving in three.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-3 with a double, a walk, and two stolen bases, his twelfth and thirteenth.  Dustan Mohr was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, his seventh.

Pitching stars:  Johan Santana struck out nine in eight innings, giving up one run on four hits and no walks.  Tony Fiore pitched a perfect inning.

Opposition stars:  Alex Ochoa was 1-for-3 with a stolen base, his fifth.

The game:  Pierzynski hit a two-run homer in the second to give the Twins a 2-0 lead.  Mohr hit a  two-run homer in the fourth to make it 4-0.  That was more than enough, as Santana limited the Brewers to two hits over the first six innings.  Ochoa singled home the lone Milwaukee run in the seventh to cut the margin to 4-1.  Pierzynski singled home the game's final run in the ninth.

WP:  Santana (3-1).  LP:  Ben Sheets (4-9).  S:  None.

Notes:  Hunter raised his average to .303...Mohr raised his average to .306...Pierzynski was now batting .327...This was Santana's best game of the season so far.  He would have one better, in late July...Sheets pitched 6.2 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits and two walks with one strikeout...Ben Sheets was a solid rotation starter for the Brewers for eight years, making the all-star team in four of them.  He came up in 2001 and did well immediately, going 10-4, 3.35 through the end of June and making his first all-star team.  He tailed off the rest of the season, though, ending 11-10, 4.76.  He was decent, but nothing more, in 2002-2003.  In 2004, though, he had his best season, going 12-14, 2.70, 0.98 WHIP with 264 strikeouts in 237 innings.  He made his second all-star team and got the only Cy Young votes of his career, finishing eighth as he was obviously hurt by his won-lost record.  He started having injury problems after that.  He made 34 starts in each season from 2002-2004, but averaged only 21 starts from 2005-2007.  He pitched well when he could pitch, though, and in 2008 he came back to make 31 starts and go 13-9, 3.09, 1.15 WHIP.  He then became a free agent, but missed all of 2009 due to an elbow injury.  He came back with Oakland in 2010 and wasn't terrible in 20 starts, but he was not the pitcher he had been.  He missed all of 2011 due to injury but came back again, making nine starts with Atlanta in 2012 and doing fairly well.  That was the end of his playing career, though.  His won-lost record doesn't look like much--94-96 in 250 starts--but he had a lifetime ERA of 3.78 and a WHIP of 1.22, and that's a pretty good pitcher.  According to wikipedia, he is a part-owner of the Milwaukee Admirals of the AHL and is a volunteer baseball coach at Louisiana-Monroe.

Record:  The Twins were 45-35, in first place, six games ahead of Chicago.

Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game Seventy-nine

CHICAGO 7, MINNESOTA 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Thursday, June 27.

Batting stars:  Torii Hunter was 2-for-4 with a triple.  A. J. Pierzynski was 2-for-4.  Corey Koskie was 1-for-2 with two walks.

Pitching star:  Juan Rincon pitched 5.1 innings of relief, giving up two runs on six hits and a walk and striking out five.

Opposition stars:  Paul Konerko was 4-for-5 with a home run his eighteenth.  Ray Durham was 2-for-4 with a three-run homer (his fourth) and a walk.  Magglio Ordonez was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.

The game:  The White Sox got four consecutive singles in the first, but only managed one run.  They made up for it in the second, as Durham hit a three-run homer to make it 4-0.  Royce Clayton singled home a run in the third to give the White Sox a 5-0 lead.  The Twins got on the board in the fourth, as Hunter tripled, David Ortiz doubled, and Pierzynski singled to make it 5-2.  Hunter singled home a run in the fifth to cut the margin to 5-3, but Konerko homered leading off the fourth to give Chicago a three-run lead again at 6-3.  The Twins got one back in the seventh on a sacrifice fly, but that was as close as they would come.  The White Sox got the game's final run in the ninth.

WP:  Gary Glover (3-3).  LP:  Rick Reed (6-4).  S:  Keith Foulke (9).

Notes:  Denny Hocking replaced Luis Rivas at second base.  He went 1-for-4...Bobby Kielty was 0-for-2 with two walks to make his average .333...Pierzynski raised his average to .323...It was Rincon's first appearance for the Twins in 2002.  He had played in four games for them in 2001.  The 5.1 innings were not the longest outing of the season for him.  I'd forgotten this, but he made three starts for the Twins in 2002, all in July.  They were the only three starts of his major league career, although he made 124 starts in the minors and was primarily a starter through the beginning of 2003...Ray Durham was a very consistent performer throughout his career.  He played all but one inning of his career at second base, playing an inning of center field in 2005.  He came up to the White Sox in 1995 and was their starting second baseman through July of 2002, when he was traded to Oakland.  He was with the Athletics the rest of that season, then went to San Francisco, where he played from 2003 through July of 2008.  He was traded to Milwaukee the rest of that season and then ended his playing career.  From 1996 through 2006 he had a batting average between .270 and .297.  From 1998 through 2004 he had an OPS between .800 and .850.  He hit in the teens in home runs every year from 1996 through 2007 except for three--2001 and 2006, when he hit in the twenties, and 2004, when he hit eight.  He made the all-star team in 1998 and 2000, but there's nothing that really differentiates those years from any other in his career.  His best year was 2006, when at age thirty-four he batted .293/.360/.538 with twenty-six home runs.  He also rarely was injured, playing in 150 or more games from 1996 through 2002 and never playing in less than 110.  He was another guy who was never really a star, but if you had him on your team you knew second base was taken care of, and that's pretty valuable.

Record:  The Twins were 44-35, in first place by six games over Chicago.