We got that 1:50AM phone call that wakes you right up; thankfully it was a couple apartments over from Runner daughter and not her building. Still, took a while for a frazzled girl and her dog to fall back asleep. And there are up to 24 families that now need a place to live, too.
Monthly Archives: April 2020
Kirby Puckett Region: #3 vs. #14
3. Kirby Puckett Robs Ron Gant
Plexiglass? Gosh the Metrodome was weird.
14. Jason Kubel Slams Rivera
Kuby Smacks are my favorite snacks. The Twins only hit two homers off Rivera in his career, and this countdown has both of them.
The Better Moment
- Puckett Robs Gant (78%, 14 Votes)
- Kuby Smacks--Rivera Edition (22%, 4 Votes)
Total Voters: 18
Loading ...The Better Moment
- Erickson's No-Hitter (60%, 12 Votes)
- Pagliarulo Pinch-Hit Homer in ALCS (40%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 20
Loading ...The Better Moment
- Kubel Slam (53%, 10 Votes)
- Gladden Slam (47%, 9 Votes)
Total Voters: 19
Loading ...The Better Moment
- Two Triple Plays in One Game (60%, 12 Votes)
- Erickson Wins 12 In a Row (40%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 20
Loading ...The Better Moment
- Touch Em All Kirby (95%, 19 Votes)
- Go Buxton Go (5%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 20
Loading ...
Random Rewind: 2004, Game One Hundred Seven
ANAHEIM 8, MINNESOTA 3 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Thursday, August 5.
Batting stars: Torii Hunter was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourteenth) and a double. Michael Cuddyer was 1-for-2 with a double and a walk.
Pitching stars: Jesse Crain struck out two in 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up two hits. Aaron Fultz pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk. J. C. Romero struck out two in a perfect inning.
Opposition stars: Aaron Sele pitched seven innings, giving up three runs on five hits and two walks and striking out one. Garret Anderson was 4-for-5. Josh Paul was 3-for-4 with a double and two runs. David Eckstein was 1-for-3 with two walks and two runs.
The game: The first two innings passed by quietly. Then in the third, Tim Salmon and Paul singled and Eckstein walked, loading the bases with none out. Chone Figgins was retired on a short fly ball, but Anderson and Vladimir Guerrero each hit an RBI single and a sacrifice fly made it 3-0. The Angels had another big inning in the fourth. Robb Quinlan singled and scored from first on Paul's one-out double. Eckstein followed with an RBI single. With two out Anderson singled, an error loaded the bases, and Jose Guillen delivered a two-run single to make the score 7-0.
The Twins offense had done very little to this point, getting only one hit through the first four innings. Hunter changed that with a home run to lead off the fifth. Corey Koskie had a one-out single, Matthew LeCroy walked, and with two out Shannon Stewart singled home a run to make it 7-2.
That was as close as the Twins would come. Each team scored a run in the seventh, but neither threatened to put together a big inning. The Twins took an 8-3 defeat.
WP: Sele (7-0). LP: Terry Mulholland (3-4). S: None.
Notes: Justin Morneau had only recently become the regular first baseman with the trade of Doug Mientkiewicz. Stewart had injury problems in 2004 and was the DH in this game, with Lew Ford in left field.
Cuddyer pinch-hit for Jacque Jones in the fifth and stayed in the game in right field. LeCroy pinch-hit for Henry Blanco in the fifth and stayed in the game behind the plate.
Jason Bartlett was at shortstop in place of Cristian Guzman. This was the second major league game and first start for Bartlett. He would be sent down after the game, but would come back as a September call-up and would begin 2005 as the team's starting shortstop.
Stewart was the batting average leader at .312. He would finish at .304. Ford was batting .301. He would finish at .299.
Mulholland pitched just 3.2 innings, allowing seven runs (five earned) on nine hits and a walk and striking out one. It was not his worst start of the season--that would come on August 26, when he would again allow seven runs in 3.2 innings, but all the runs would be earned. He was forty-one, and was really not a good pitcher anymore. He really hadn't been very good for some time, but teams kept sending him out there. I assume it was a case where, as Bill James once put it, he would pitch well just often enough to fool teams into pitching him some more.
Despite Sele's 7-0 record, he didn't have all that good a year. At this point he was 7-0 with an ERA of 4.60. He would finish 9-4, 5.05, 1.62 WHIP. He started his career well, but after 1995 he only had one season with an ERA of lower than 4.20 and six seasons with an ERA of over 5.00. Despite that, he pitched until he was thirty-seven and had a fifteen-year major league career. It's always amazing to me how some guys keep getting chance after chance, long after they've proven they're not good enough, and other guys dominate AAA and at most get one brief shot.
The Twins had won four in a row and eight out of nine coming into this game.
Record: The Twins were 61-46, in first place in the American League Central, six games ahead of Chicago. They would finish 92-70, in first place, nine games ahead of Chicago.
The Angels were 58-50, in third place in the American League West, three games behind Texas. They would finish 92-70, in first place, one game ahead of Oakland.
Wolf Parade – Julia Take Your Man Home
KRUG + BOECKNER FOREVER
(1 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)You must be a WGOM Citizen to rate WGOM Videos.
Loading... 
Happy Birthday–April 17
Alexander Cartwright (1820)
Cap Anson (1852)
Tom Needham (1879)
Jake Daubert (1884)
Buzz Arlett (1912)
Solly Hemus (1923)
Tsutomu Wakamatsu (1947)
Denny Walling (1954)
Craig Worthington (1965)
Marquis Grissom (1967)
Gary Bennett (1972)
Ryan Raburn (1981)
Jed Lowrie (1984)
Deolis Guerra (1989)
Alexander Cartwright was instrumental in developing the rules for the game of baseball.
Buzz Arlett 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.
Kirby Puckett Region: #4 vs. #13
4. Scott Erickson Throws No-Hitter
I definitely was not paying attention to the Twins in April of 1994. More impressive than Eric Milton's and Francisco Liriano's no-hitters. Just four walks allowed and not facing the getaway day lineup.
13. Mike Pagliarulo's Pinch-Hit Homer in ALCS
I have zero recollection of this, even though I'm sure I watched it. But man, coming off the bench on the road in extras to help put the series up two games to one? This should be more well-known.
The Better Moment
- Erickson's No-Hitter (60%, 12 Votes)
- Pagliarulo Pinch-Hit Homer in ALCS (40%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 20
Loading ...The Better Moment
- Kubel Slam (53%, 10 Votes)
- Gladden Slam (47%, 9 Votes)
Total Voters: 19
Loading ...The Better Moment
- Two Triple Plays in One Game (60%, 12 Votes)
- Erickson Wins 12 In a Row (40%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 20
Loading ...The Better Moment
- Touch Em All Kirby (95%, 19 Votes)
- Go Buxton Go (5%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 20
Loading ...
Random Rewind: 1980, Game Eighty-one
MINNESOTA 6, SEATTLE 3 IN SEATTLE
Date: Friday, July 11.
Batting stars: Rick Sofield was 3-for-4 with a home run (his seventh) and two runs. Rob Wilfong was 3-for-4 with a triple, a walk, and two runs. Ken Landreaux was 2-for-5 with a home run (his fourth) and three RBIs.
Pitching stars: Darrell Jackson struck out eight in 7.2 innings, giving up three runs on six hits and two walks. Doug Corbett pitched 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up a hit.
Opposition stars: Leon Roberts was 1-for-3 with a two-run homer (his seventh), a stolen base (his fifth), and a walk. Larry Milbourne was 1-for-3 with a walk.
The game: The Twins got a run in the first when Wilfong tripled and scored on a Landreaux single. In the second Glenn Adams singled, was bunted to second, went to third on an error, and scored on a squeeze bunt (yes, Gene Mauch was the manager) to make it 2-0.
The Mariners loaded the bases with two out in the third but did not score. It stayed 2-0 until the sixth, when Milbourne singled, Bruce Bochte hit an RBI double, and Roberts delivered a two-run homer, putting Seattle up 3-2. The lead only held until the first batter of the seventh, when Sofield hit an inside-the-park home run to tie it 3-3.
The Twins took the lead back in the eighth, when Wilfong walked and Landreaux hit a two-run homer to make it 5-3. They added one more in the ninth when Sofield singled, went to second on a ground out, and scored on a Wilfong single. The Mariners got only one hit after their three-run sixth.
WP: Jackson (7-4). LP: Glenn Abbott (7-4). S: Corbett (9).
Notes: Pete Mackanin was at shortstop, replacing Roy Smalley, who was apparently out with a minor injury. Mike Cubbage, who played third most of his career, was apparently part of a platoon at first base with Ron Jackson. Glenn Adams was the DH as part of a platoon with Jose Morales.
Morales pinch-hit for Adams in the eighth and Jackson pinch-hit for Cubbage in the eighth. Dave Edwards pinch-ran for Morales in the eighth.
Jackson was 5'10", 150 pounds. Herb Carneal's partner at the time, Joe McConnell, used to refer to him as "the little lefthander". This was by far the best season of his career--he went 9-9, 3.87, 1.34 WHIP. He had injury troubles after that and never had a good year again.
The Twins really didn't have a bad rotation in 1980. In addition to Jackson, they had Jerry Koosman (16-13, 4.03), Geoff Zahn (14-18, 4.41), and Roger Erickson (7-13, 3.25). It's not the 1990s Braves, but it's not bad. They struggled for a fifth starter, with Pete Redfern (5-5, 4.56) and Fernando Arroyo (6-6, 4.68) usually filling the role. We think of the Twins not having any pitching at that time, or at least I do, but that's not an awful rotation at all.
They sure didn't have any power, though. The team hit just ninety-nine home runs in 1980. The team leaders was John Castino, with thirteen. Smalley was the only other batter in double figures, with twelve. Their cleanup batter in this game was Wynegar, who finished the season with five home runs.
I recall Sofield being fairly highly touted as a future star. Obviously, it didn't happen. He hit .328 with 27 homers in 1977 in Class A Visalia, but that was the only year he showed any power. He was the Twins' starting right fielder in 1979 on the strength of a solid but not outstanding year in AA. He was batting just .241 with an OPS of .582 (although with an OBP of .323) when he was sent down in mid-May. He came back as a September call-up and batted .400 in 42 plate appearances. He was again in the starting outfield in 1980, his only full season in the majors. He batted .247 with an OPS of .661. He was with the Twins as a reserve for most of 1981, but didn't hit. The inside-the-park home run in this game may well have been the highlight of his career.
The Twins leading batter at this point of the season was Morales at .347. He would finish at .303. Adams was batting .315. He would finish at .286.
This was the fourth game of a six-game winning streak for the Twins.
Record: The Twins were 37-44, in fourth place in the American League West, 11.5 games behind Kansas City. They would finish 77-84, in third place, 19.5 games behind Kansas City.
The Mariners were 35-47, in sixth place, fourteen games behind Kansas City. They would finish 59-103, in seventh (last) place, thirty-eight games behind Kansas City.
April 16, 2020: Tidal Fragmentation
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.
Rich Rollins, Bernie Allen, and Garry Roggenburk all played for the Twins at the same time. I wonder how unusual it is for a team to have three players who share the same birthday. They also all were born or raised in the state of Ohio. Rollins and Allen were also business partners for a while.
CHAI – Curly Adventure
Amusingly, I picked up this album the same day as Otoboke Beaver's album. While there are some similarities in their messages, CHAI takes a very different path to get there.
(1 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10)You must be a WGOM Citizen to rate WGOM Videos.
Loading...